


L'Été en Azur

by FannyT, RedOrchid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dark Magic, Fluff, M/M, Niall Horan wins at life, OT5 Friendship, Summer Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 12:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1941267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FannyT/pseuds/FannyT, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedOrchid/pseuds/RedOrchid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hogwarts students Louis, Liam and Niall go on a summer exchange to Beauxbatons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supernope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernope/gifts).



> For supernope, who wished for a Hogwarts AU. Perfect prompt, I haven't had this much fun writing in a long time. :)
> 
> Big thanks to the lovely FannyT, who is a star and co-wrote this with me, to wonderful betas Barmy_Bunk and Zarah5, to A, for making sure my French did not suck, and to the mods of this exchange, for organising everything and being generally made of awesome.
> 
> Translation into Spanish available here: http://my.w.tt/UiNb/jqgOx3ubLz  
> (By sunsshinelarry)

“Are you sure you have everything packed?”

Louis stuffed another pair of socks into his trunk and surveyed the mess within. As far as he could tell, there were at least three pairs of pants and two sets of robes in it, mostly wrapped around his broomstick to keep it from being damaged in transit. Good enough.

“I’m fine, mum. Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” his mum said with a small smile. “You’re not the one whose eldest is buggering off to a different country.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “It’s only two weeks, and it’s France, not Antarctica. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Still,” his mum replied. “It’ll take some getting used to. You only just came back home from school.”

“Mum.”

“I know, I know, I’m being silly. It’s just—I feel dreadful about it, but I need to ask. Are you quite sure this is what you truly want to do? Considering?” She looked worried, Louis thought, and for good reason, really. Louis felt a familiar surge of guilt at the dark circles beneath his mum’s eyes.

“If you need me to stay, I will,” he said softly. “You know that, right?”

“I do,” his mum replied. “Of course I do, and I don’t want you to, truly. I just—you’ve already fallen behind one year because you’ve had to help out so much at home, and I just want you to weigh all your options. An apprenticeship over the summer can be a great starting point for a career, and with only a year to go before your NEWTS…”

“I know, mum,” Louis said. “I’ve considered it, I promise. I just—I don’t know what I want to do after Hogwarts, and this exchange programme might be the only chance I have to go abroad for a long time—unless we win the Goblin lottery, that is—and I… I really, _really_ want to do this.”

“Well then,” his mum said. She walked closer and pulled Louis into a tight hug. “I’m happy for you. It’s a great honour having been chosen, and I hope you have a wonderful time.”

“Thanks, mum,” Louis whispered, hugging her back just as tightly. “I’ll floo to check in on you and the girls, alright? As often as I can.”

“I know you will,” his mum said. “Now get your arse downstairs and help Fizzy with supper before she burns the house down.”

On the wall above Louis’s desk, his calendar cleared its throat. 

“Nineteen hours left until _Meeting at Leaky Cauldron_ ,” it said, self-importantly. 

Louis disentangled himself from his mum and glared at it. “I’ve told you to stop that!” he said. “Mum, it’s been doing an hourly countdown all day. I can’t figure out how to turn it off.”

His mum laughed, patting his shoulder. “At least there’s no chance you’ll be late tomorrow.”

Suddenly, there was a loud crash downstairs, followed by Fizzy yelling about fire and Lottie’s familiar shout of exasperation. Louis and his mum looked at each other, shared a knowing smile and sprinted together towards the stairs.

* * *

As per usual, The Leaky Cauldron was full of people. Louis craned his neck and looked across the main room, trying to spot where his group might be converging. Apart from the other Slytherin delegate, Dorothea Grey-Smith from the year below him, he didn’t know who else would be in the exchange; before he had time to start feeling lost, however, Professor Sinistra appeared next to him, pointing towards the far left of the bar. 

“Professor Longbottom has gone to set up our transport,” she said. “Please take a seat with the other students while we get everything sorted.”

Louis nodded and did as he was told, dragging his trunk behind him towards a large table in the corner, where a few other Hogwarts students were already assembled.

Right away, he recognised the Keeper for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team and general-do-gooder-with-a-stick-the-size-of-a-tree-up-his-arse Liam Payne, sitting together with one of the Hufflepuff girls in their year. Another Smith, one of Dorothea’s cousins (and why some of them seemed to always end up in Hufflepuff was a mystery to him—Slytherins to the core the lot of them, really) and one of the truly devious ones, at that—already engaged to a Greengrass before her NEWTS were even in. 

Louis would have been impressed if he wasn’t busy rolling his eyes at the utter cliché of it all.

The Ravenclaws were represented by the Patil twins from the year below. The brother was chatty and a Divination prodigy, Louis knew, but that was about it. So that meant that the only ones still missing were the Gryffindors. How very typical.

Right on cue, there was a loud _woosh_ from the fireplace next to where Louis was sitting, and two people fell out of it, landing in a tangle of limbs on the floor.

Oh no.

Louis did a double take, hoping against hope that he was mistaken and that the Gryffindor delegates weren’t actually the Irish nightmare duo, also known as Niall Horan and Ainsley Finnegan—Gryffindor Beaters and a general pain in the arse of anyone unlucky enough to come their way. Louis could still remember the epic pranks by James Potter and his ilk from when he was a first-year (before the eldest Potter thankfully graduated and his younger brother and sister proved to be a whole lot nicer without their big brother there to constantly egg them on), but as bad as James and his Weasley cousins had been, Horan and Finnegan had them beat. Absolute terrors both of them, and while Louis definitely was not one to turn down a good prank, he greatly objected to them being played on _him_ , or members of his House, for that matter.

Horan and Finnegan were getting off the floor, shoving at each other as they gathered their belongings. Louis hoped that Beauxbatons would turn out to be a large sort of place. And that the building they’d be staying in was invulnerable to fire.

“Settle down, everyone, settle down,” Professor Sinistra admonished. “Ms Finnegan, please remove the Sticking Spell you just cast on Mr Horan’s trunk. There’ll be time enough for your shenanigans once we’ve arrived in France.”

Finnegan’s face was a study in innocence; Louis instinctively pulled his own belongings closer as the two Gryffindors sorted themselves out. Professor Sinistra, meanwhile, had pulled out a satchel and was withdrawing thick scrolls of parchment for each of them with smooth flicks of her wand.

“I’m sure you have all read up extensively on the history of Beauxbatons and its approach to magical education,” she said. “But just in case any of you _accidentally_ misplaced the orientation scroll you were given together with your acceptance notice for the exchange, here is a handy copy. I urge you all to at least skim it. Every magical school has its own traditions, and things will go a lot smoother for both you and Hogwarts’s reputation if you make an effort to keep up an attitude of openness and respect.”

“Not to mention,” Professor Longbottom added, walking up to the group with a satchel of his own in his hand, “that this is the first exchange programme for Hogwarts in almost a century. We’ve been through a long, painful restoration process since the last war, and while I agree that the focus on rebuilding and change was necessary, it’s now almost thirty years since Riddle was defeated, and it’s high time to start working on our ties with other magical people. If this exchange goes well, it will mean a lot, not only for you, but for future students as well. So be on your best behaviour.”

General nodding and murmurs of assent followed Professor Longbottom’s speech, Payne and Hufflepuff-Smith looking particularly eager. Louis sometimes wondered if the Hufflepuffs had special classes where they listened to authority figures speak and practiced their matching looks of fascination. Surely it couldn’t be a natural talent in all of them.

“Now, we’re leaving by Portkey from the Ministry in precisely twenty-two minutes,” Professor Sinistra said. “So if there are no further questions, please follow me.”

Louis shot a quick smile at Dorothea as the whole group got to their feet. Less than half an hour and he would be in France, far away from his regular life and with a full two weeks ahead of him with nothing and no one to worry about.

Louis couldn’t wait to get there.

* * *

The Portkey activated right on time, and after the tell-tale tug in his stomach and some general swirling and confusion, Louis and the rest of their group found themselves walking through a bright corridor towards a pair of tall, beautifully gilded doors. Both the walls and the ceiling were made of something that looked like a cross between glass and marble, and some kind of moss full of sweet-smelling blue flowers silenced their footsteps as they walked towards the doors.

Louis suddenly felt very shabby in his plain black school robes.

“ _Présentons la délegation de Poudlard,_ ” Professor Sinistra said, sinking into a deep curtsy with Professor Longbottom right next to her, following her example. There was a soft tinkling of bells, and the doors slid open.

“ _Oh Bríd Ní Chléirigh_ ,” Louis heard Horan say behind him. 

The first thing Louis noticed was the sound of water. There was a soft, soothing bubbling, like from a forest creek, and when he looked around, he saw water flowing down the walls, evaporating in a sparkling mist a few feet above the floor. Louis stretched out a hand, wondering, and realised with fascination that it was no mere charm—the water was real, and quite pleasantly tempered.

“This is the _Grande Salle_ , or the Great Hall,” Professor Sinistra said. “This is where you’ll take all your meals. Tomorrow, when you’ve had time to settle in, there’ll be a Welcoming Feast in your honour.”

“Ooh, look at the _lights_ ,” Dorothea said.

Louis couldn’t help but agree. Unlike the Great Hall at Hogwarts, the ceiling wasn’t charmed to reflect the sky above it, but instead twinkled with a multitude of lights that were moving serenely across the space in symmetric patterns. As they watched, the lights formed a large crest, picturing a pair of crossed wands, each shooting out three stars. 

“The crest of Beauxbatons,” Professor Longbottom told them quietly. “The three stars represent the classification of magic in levels of intimacy with the person, creature or organism channeling it. It’s a different perspective than the one we have at home, but a very interesting one. Miss Patil, perhaps you know what I’m referring to?”

“Of course”, Priya Patil answered, and Louis surreptitiously rolled his eyes. Ravenclaws—always ready with an answer. “The French call it _Les trois niveaux d’intimité_. There’s a tradition here of using music as a metaphor to explain the different levels, where _la voix_ is the sharpest, lightest level—the melody— _le corps_ is the middle range, or the harmonies filling out the sound, and _le coeur_ is the bass register, where the root and rhythm to magic are found.”

“Excellent answer, Miss Patil,” Professor Longbottom said, beaming at her. “I’d give twenty points to Ravenclaw, but as the school year’s no longer in session, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with the honour of being the first Hogwarts students to take a seat in the _Grande Salle_. After you.”

Priya looked slightly overwhelmed for a second, but quickly collected herself. She tugged lightly at her brother’s sleeve, pulling him with her towards a round table in the centre of the room, on which plates, glasses and cutlery were shimmering into view. The rest of the group followed, and as soon as they had all sat down, large soap bubbles started forming in the air above them, drifting down towards their plates and melting into small, delicious-looking dishes.

Louis looked around, noticing that everyone seemed to have got different things on their plates; his own held an assortment of meats and some sort of melted cheese dish while Dorothea’s (who was an avid vegetarian, Louis knew from hearing her and her friends go on and on about it during meals) was a symphony of different coloured vegetables, so he guessed that the castle was trying to show off by accommodating everyone’s preferences. The first bite of his food confirmed this theory, and as they ate, new bubbles kept forming, revealing treat after treat until Louis honestly thought he would have to be carried away from the table.

During the entire meal, the hall remained empty of any people apart from their group, and with every passing moment, Louis’s curiosity grew.

“Where is everyone?” he asked the person sitting next to him, who happened to be Horan. “I thought the school year here ended later than at home.”

“No idea,” Horan answered. “It’s a bit early in the day though, maybe they’re still in class? Ains? What do you reckon?”

Ainsley Finnegan shrugged and popped a piece of cheese into her mouth. Horan looked back at Louis as though to say ‘well, what can you do?’ and followed her example. Louis sighed.

“When you’ve all finished your lunch,” Professor Sinistra said, “we’ll go together to the dormitories where representatives of the school will meet you for a brief tour. Professor Longbottom and I will then bid you goodbye. If anything should happen during your stay that requires you to get in touch with someone back home urgently, please alert a member of staff here, and they will help you. For non-urgent matters there’s a wonderful aviary here which you’ll be allowed access to; just keep in mind that the transit time from here to England will likely be a few days for any messages you send and receive.”

“What about Floo?” Payne asked. “Surely there must be at least one fireplace with student access in the castle?”

“The Floo system doesn’t stretch this far South, I’m afraid,” Professor Longbottom replied. “Beauxbatons has their own means of travel and communications similar to ours, but it’s limited to Southern Europe and a few points in Northern Africa.”

Louis tried not to let his dismay show. A few days for a letter? That meant he wouldn’t be able to get news from or to his mum nearly as often as he would like during his stay. He’d have to send a letter tonight, inform her of the lack of Floo—even so, it probably wouldn’t reach her until Tuesday or Wednesday… 

Horan was looking at him, and Louis made an effort to pull his face into a suitably casual expression. The last thing he needed now was for some Gryffindor kid to start cracking jokes about the poor little Slytherin being homesick.

Besides, things at home had been fine since his mum got her job at St Mungo’s. And Lottie was definitely just as good as Louis at taking care of the twins during the day. He needed to stop worrying and start enjoying the fact that he had two weeks entirely to himself.

Everything would be perfectly fine.

* * *

“ _Cette partie du château date du XVe siècle. Observez les fresques, elles sont très répresentives de la période,_ ” a tall, dark-haired boy told them, leading the group through hallway after hallway, yabbering away in rapid French with a few mispronounced words in English thrown in that Louis, nevertheless, felt he understood quite well just from context. _Check out our rad castle. Bet you’ve never seen anything even half as posh before. You Englishmen probably go to school in a barn, yada yada, could I interest you in some snails for dinner?_ Piece of cake, really.

“ _Dans un moment, nous allons sortir dans les jardins,_ ” the boy said. “ _Faites attention à ne pas toucher les arbres à côté de la dix-septième fontaine. Les nymphes qui y vivent ne sont pas très agréables en ce moment._ ”

He led them down yet another corridor and made a curt bow to the door at the end of it. The door opened, and Louis found himself looking out over miles and miles of sweeping grounds, where hundreds of perfect paths of gravel ran in symmetrical patterns between opulent flower beds, artfully sculpted bushes and a truly astonishing number of fountains.

Louis raised a hand. “Excuse me? Is it OK if I go to the bathroom first?”

The boy looked at him, vaguely confused. 

“Um, toilet?” Louis tried, attempting to give the word a french inflection. Horan sniggered. 

The boy’s expression cleared. 

“ _Oui, là-bas,_ ” he said, pointing to a door a little further down the corridor they’d just walked through. Louis nodded gratefully and hurried off. 

For a moment, he wondered if he’d taken the wrong door. The bathroom was ridiculously large, decorated with white marble and with a tiny fountain playing in the middle of the room. There was some kind of plant winding itself up on the sinks, framing the large mirrors above each basin, and instead of the vaguely unpleasant smell Louis usually associated with student bathrooms, it smelt pleasantly of lilac. Louis turned slowly, gazing around in wonder. Beauxbatons certainly knew how to do the whole _graceful_ thing. 

As he finished up and went to wash his hands, he was still lost in wonderment. Only the sound of voices passing by outside reminded him that the rest of his group was still waiting for him and that he’d probably lingered too long as it was. He dried his hands quickly and went for the door. 

Someone entered just then, taking a startled step backwards as Louis almost walked into him. 

“Oh. _Pardon_.”

Louis looked up into a face framed by curling brown hair, with a wide mouth and green eyes, and all his limited knowledge of French suddenly and completely left him. 

“ _Bonjour,_ ” he managed after what felt like too many seconds. 

The boy grinned. “ _Bonjour._ ”

He took half a step closer to Louis and into a patch of light coming through from one of the windows. For a moment, his face and hair seemed to almost shimmer. Louis felt a little dazed.

He opened his mouth again, could think of absolutely nothing even remotely clever to say, and finally decided not to risk it. Through the weird wool-like feeling that seemed to have taken over his brain, he could hear his group moving about. He made a vague gesture towards the door and sidled past the boy out into the corridor, trying not to wince at himself.

* * *

Louis learned, with some help from the Patil twins (whose French was, of course, annoyingly good) that they were each going to room with a student from Beauxbatons for the duration of the exchange. Instead of being divided into Houses, Beauxbatons grouped their students by year and magical specialty—something to do with the whole French classification of magic. Louis hoped he’d have time to learn more about that before he left, because at the moment, it just confused him. The dormitories were different as well: one bedroom for each student instead of the shared ones Louis was used to, with a smaller common room or study area for every ten to twelve rooms.

The one Louis was directed to late on the first day was at the end of a long row of similar doors up in one of the castle’s many towers. He liked it from the first look. The room was quite small, but there were large windows along the wall, making the room bright and welcoming as well as showing Louis a beautiful view of the grounds and, further on, of the Pyrenean mountains surrounding the school. Whoever lived there clearly liked the ocean a lot; nautical drawings and paintings decorated the walls, with a large portrait of a family of mermaids hanging right above a bed to the right. The opposite side of the room held a second bed, which Louis supposed was going to be his for the stay—mainly because both the comforter and the pillows had been charmed with the Hogwarts crest. As he reached out and touched the one on the comforter, the Slytherin part of the crest began to sparkle, and as Louis watched, the snake began to grow, until the original crest had been replaced with the one for Louis’s House.

It was a neat piece of Charm work, and Louis had to admit that it did make him feel oddly welcome.

He took a moment to shuffle through his trunk, which had already been placed at the foot of his bed, found his toothbrush and night robes and decided that getting some sleep would just have to take precedence over manners this time around. He’d have two whole weeks to get to know his roommate, after all.

He fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

* * *

The next morning, Louis woke up to the sound of an invisible string quartet playing a jaunty sort of tune that simultaneously made him want to jump out of bed and go for a jog and curse whoever had invented the blasted thing into oblivion.

On the other side of the room, the second bed looked exactly like it had when Louis had fallen asleep. No sign of a roommate having been in during the night. Weird.

He got dressed and made his way down towards the _Grande Salle_ , where he found Niall and Ainsley already sitting at their table from yesterday—the latter looking barely awake. Both Patil twins were up already as well, but they had opted for joining a few of the Beauxbatons students and were chatting away happily in French about what sounded like Astronomy. Honestly, they couldn’t be more Ravenclaw if they tried. 

“Good morning,” he told Niall, who nodded a greeting in return. Ainsley only muttered something vague over the rim of her coffee cup. 

Louis sat down, looking around the table. It was laden with baskets of croissants and jars of marmalade and honey, and there were large, ornate pots of coffee—one of which Ainsley held cradled protectively in the crook of an elbow—but there was no sign of the bubbles of the day before. 

“I’m guessing no more à la carte, then?” Louis said, trying to make his tone light. Niall snorted. 

“Unfortunately, no,” he said. “And if you’re looking for the eggs and bacon, you’re going to be disappointed. I don’t know how these people survive. I mean, look at this.”

He held up a _pain au chocolat_ and glared at it in disgust. “What kind of breakfast is this for a growing lad?”

“Niall nurses a fond hope that he’s still growing,” Ainsley murmured. “Probably because the alternative is too terrible to consider.”

Niall shoved her good-naturedly, and Louis found himself grinning. Niall and Ainsley from afar had always seemed kind of exhausting, but seeing them give each other the same amount of grief they gave the rest of the world was—well, somehow uplifting. Louis was still kind of amazed that they had the energy for that kind of constant bickering, though. 

Niall leaned closer to him, with a kind of conspiratory air. “We’re planning a coup,” he said. “Want to join?”

Louis leaned in as well, lowering his voice. “Will it get me a Full English?”

“That is exactly the point.”

“Well, you’ve piqued my interest, at least,” Louis said, and Niall grinned at him, clapping his shoulder. He then turned back to Ainsley, who seemed to be joining them in the world of the waking at last, and started asking her something about her roommate. Louis listened for a while, but soon found his attention wandering. He looked around the _Grande Salle_ , taking in the light streaming in through the large windows, the prettily fragile decorations everywhere and all the students—noting especially the ones with curling brown hair. 

“What are you looking for?”

Louis turned back guiltily towards Niall. 

“Nothing. Thought I saw someone.”

The boy from the bathroom wasn’t there. It seemed like Beauxbatons was emptying for the holidays, with only a few students staying for summer classes. He was probably on a train home already. Or—well, whatever means of transport they used here. 

“So,” Louis said, trying to find his way back into the conversation. “You’ve met your roommates, then?” 

Niall grinned, and beside him, Ainsley managed a truly wicked smile as well. 

“I think we could have some fun with them,” she said. “How about you?”

“Not yet,” Louis said, shrugging it off. “I suppose he’s coming in late or something. No one really told me. Which reminds me—did anyone tell you anything about how we are supposed to understand anyone here?” 

“Translation spell,” Niall said promptly. “Got one from a book. It’s super easy. You just follow my lead.”

Louis glanced at Ainsley, whose face had gone very innocent.

“Yeah, OK. I’ll check in with you later about how that’s working out,” he said.

At the next table, the Patil twins stood up with the rest of the students. Louis caught the eye of the brother, Padmam, who waved at them. 

“It’s time for the tour,” he said, then followed quickly after his sister and the rest of the students. 

“They’ve certainly gone native quickly,” Niall said, rolling his eyes. “Ugh, typical. _Ravenclaws_.”

“You know what Professor Longbottom would say if he heard you stereotyping Houses that way,” Ainsley admonished, then ruined her political correctness somewhat by adding, “Come on, let’s join the nerds.”

Louis nodded, grabbed a last croissant from a basket and headed off with the others. 

The first part of the tour was more or less a repetition of the day before. The boy leading their group was still speaking almost exclusively in French, so Louis found it hard to concentrate. He spent his time listening to Niall and Ainsley’s somewhat disturbing ideas for pranking their roommates and looking around at the rest of the group. 

Suddenly, he became aware of running footsteps behind them, crunching against the gravel path. 

“ _Michel_ ,” a voice said from right behind him, and Louis turned to find the boy from the day before, standing only a few feet away. “ _Désolé, il y avait un problème avec les Portoloins à Paris…_ ”

Their guide waved a hand impatiently. “ _C’est pas grave. Voici, à toi._ ”

Michel walked off and the boy from the bathroom made his way to the front of the group and then turned and waved at them, grinning. 

“Hi, everyone,” he said, in excellent English. “I’m Harry. I’ll be taking over as guide for the afternoon, and we’ll be heading off now to see some of the Beauxbatons annexes. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me. Oh! And sorry, which of you is Louis Tomlinson?”

Louis cleared his throat, then waved. 

“Oh.” Harry looked at him, then grinned in recognition. “Hey, that’s you.”

“Uh-huh,” Louis replied intelligently. 

“So, yes,” Harry said, making a sweeping gesture with his arm and almost knocking over a statue, “head this way. We’ll be travelling by Mist Arch, so prepare a drying spell.”

As the group moved on, Harry moved to Louis’s side and held out his hand. “So, we’re going to be roommates,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Louis said, shaking his hand. 

“Sorry I wasn’t there last night to greet you,” Harry said. “Had to go to Paris. My sister was getting her doctorate, so, you know. Big deal.”

“That’s fine,” Louis said, and then made an effort to stop being so very monosyllabic. “Doctorate, that’s big! And we have plenty of time to make up for it.”

Of course, as soon as those words were out of his mouth, he mentally rolled his eyes at himself. _Plenty of time to make up for it. Honestly_. But Harry only grinned widely at him, raising his eyebrows. 

“Guess it’s true what they say about Hogwarts boys being forward,” he said, taking Louis completely off guard. In a good way.

“Your English is great,” he said, reminding himself to stay cool and collected.

“My mum’s English,” Harry said. “Accounts for the stupidly hard-to-pronounce-in-French name. And the bilingualism, which tends to make me guide whenever we have foreign guests. Which, you know, not too bad. I get to meet fun people.” He grinned at Louis again, and Louis drew a deep breath. If Harry kept smiling like that, the next two weeks had the possibility to be very interesting indeed.

* * *

“I am dead,” Niall declared, as they finally arrived back at the castle. “If someone could levitate me up the steps, that’d be grand.”

“I could hex the soles of your shoes to feel like they’re on fire,” Ainsley suggested. “That’d make you move your arse pretty quick, I wager.”

“You wouldn’t,” Niall protested, though he didn’t look entirely convinced. “Our bond of friendship is strong and true.”

“You’re in my way to get to the feast, though,” Ainsley said. “There’d be extenuating circumstances.”

“She’s right, you know,” Louis cut in, thoroughly enjoying the surprise of the Gryffindors’ faces as he did so. “Deprivation of food is considered a form of torture by the Wizengamot. She’d definitely have a case arguing self-defense.”

Ainsley stared at him for a moment, and then a slow, wicked smile spread across her face. “You know, Tomlinson, maybe I’ve misjudged you.”

“No you haven’t,” Niall said adamantly. Then he turned to Louis, and a thoughtful look came over his face. “But maybe we’ve overlooked the usefulness of other perspectives.”

Ainsley’s grin grew even wider. “An extra set of skills is always good.” She held out her hand, and Niall immediately followed her lead.

Louis looked between the two of them, taken aback. The Gryffindors waited, the challenge clear in the air.

What the heck. 

Louis held out his own hand and shook Ainsley’s and Niall’s in turn. The purpose of the exchange had been to make friends in new places, after all. 

And if they turned out to be pretending to be friendly to double-cross him later, well. The Slytherin private library had a whole section of books with very imaginative spells to deal with such situations, so either way. Win-win.

* * *

About an hour and a truly ridiculous amount of food later, Louis was sitting in the _Grande Salle_ , idly poking at some kind of cream-filled pastry, as the world-famous form of Madame Maxime—honoured war hero and current Headmistress of Beauxbatons—took the stage to loud smattering of applause.

“ _Bonsoir, tout le monde, et bienvenue._ And to our students from ‘ogwarts. I bid you very welcome. Beauxbatons ‘az a long tradition of caring for and developing ze unique gifts of magic, and we want to show you somezing very special. Please enjoy.”

Madame Maxime left the stage and a mist started forming on the edges of the podium, soon covering it entirely. Louis craned his neck to see better, but could only make out a bit of indistinct movement before the mist dissipated again, leaving a full stage in its wake. Soft notes from a flute started floating in from the wings, and the stage slowly filled with people—students, by the look of them—forming a demicircle in three tiers, holding about fifty people in total. Harry was among them, taking a spot in the third tier. Louis’s interest peaked.

Once the choir was in place, a large crate was placed in front of them, and as Louis and the others watched, a dark-haired boy of about seventeen stepped up to it and held out an apple. A few murmured words and the apple floated into the air, split down the centre, and the seeds fell out into the boy’s open hand. He put them in the crate and then took a step back.

The apple wedges floated for a moment longer and then fell to the floor. And the music started.

First, there was only a steady beat of bass tones in three-part harmony. It was slow and hypnotic and made Louis think of fresh dirt for some reason—of the smell in the greenhouses at Hogwarts right after new seedlings had been replanted into larger pots. He closed his eyes for a second, and then heard a sharp gasp to his right, making him look back up.

His eyes widened; a small seedling was pushing its way out of the crate, growing taller with every repetition of the pulsing music. When it was a couple of feet high, branches began to shoot off from the trunk, and small, green leaves started forming.

A soft melody started up from the back tier of the choir, and the tree seemed to stretch its branches. Then the second tier began to sing a harmony, and some of the leaves turned into blossoms.

“Earth Magic,” Dorothea whispered, sounding awed. “I can’t believe my parents didn’t send me here instead of to Hogwarts. Look at their control—it’s absolutely fantastic!”

On stage, the tree was now five or six feet tall, with a crown full of leaves and blossoms. The dark-haired boy from before walked up to it and held out his hand, stroking the bark softly before taking up the melody the others were singing and making it his own, singing a solo that went higher and higher until it ended on a last, soaring note and the tree shivered, blossoms falling in droves to the floor and bright, red apples taking their places on the branches.

The choir held the last chord until every blossom had fallen, and then applause broke out all around the room. 

Next to Louis, Dorothea was clapping wildly, same as the rest of the people in their group. Louis joined them, adding a whistle when his eyes wandered towards the back row for a moment and he found Harry looking right back at him with a big smile on his face.

“I’m going to go talk to the soloist,” Dorothea declared. “Gloria, come with me.”

“What do you need me for?” Gloria protested. “I’m not the one who needs to make a good political match.”

“Come with me or I’ll tell aunt Crystal about _that thing_ at Easter,” Dorothea hissed. “Your French is better than mine. Come help me.”

“I don’t see how I should be punished just because my dad happens to know useful languages instead of hopelessly obscure ones,” Gloria grumbled. Dorothea shot her a threatening look. “Fine, _fine_ , I’ll go with you.”

The two of them set off to corner the dark-haired French boy, which left Louis quite alone at his part of the table. He looked back towards the stage and almost immediately spotted Harry standing there, talking animatedly with two other singers.

Well, perhaps Louis, too, should take the opportunity to go look at the magical tree. Learning about new spells and all that.

He walked up to the stage and milled about in the crowd of people wanting to touch the trunk of the tree or who tried to reach for the branches. He gradually shifted closer to where Harry was standing, until he could quietly draw his wand and pull an apple down from one of the branches. Then he did what every mature person would do and lobbed the apple at Harry’s head.

He’d aimed a few inches off target, so that the apple wouldn’t actually hit anyone, but of course—because Louis had the worst luck with these things—Harry chose that precise moment to move and ended up having the apple explode into a big mushy mess right in his face.

Huh. So magically grown fruit wasn’t all that structurally sound. One part of Louis’s brain made a note of this fact while the rest of him rushed forward, elbowing students out of the way.

“Sorry, sorry, Harry? You all right there, mate?”

Harry spluttered and coughed in reply, ineffectually trying to get the apple goop out of his eyes with the sleeves of his robes. Louis raised his wand and cast a quick cleaning spell, realising too late that it was one he normally used for a whole different kind of sticky mess. Oh well, means to an end.

Harry looked up at him, feeling his face and hair carefully. “What the—”

“Sorry,” Louis said again. “I just threw it as a joke. It wasn’t supposed to blow up in your face”

Harry stared at him for a minute, then he grinned. “That’s what he said.”

Louis gaped at him.

“No harm done, though,” Harry continued. He took a step closer to Louis—which brought him quite inappropriately close, really, since Louis had already been right next to him—and looked up at him through his lashes. “I hear apple juice is really good for the skin. Makes it all supple and _firm_.”

Louis blinked at him, suddenly feeling himself leaning forward as though pulled by invisible strings. Harry’s face was doing that thing again, where it looked almost shimmering, and Louis wanted very badly to reach up and touch it. Before he could follow through on that, however, something cold and sticky exploded all over his face.

“Payback’s a bitch,” Harry whispered in his ear, snickering as he walked off, leaving Louis spluttering and trying to get pieces of mushy apple out of his eyes.

He cast the cleaning spell a second time and then blinked for good measure. A happy grin spread across his face as he carefully felt his hair for any remaining traces. It was going to be a very interesting two weeks.


	2. Chapter Two

Louis’s first lesson at Beauxbatons was Potions. To his disappointment, this was not one of Harry’s summer classes. None of the Gryffindors or the Ravenclaws were taking the class either, which meant that he was stuck with the Hufflepuffs—and, thank Merlin, Dorothea. 

“How did it go with that bloke last night, then?” Louis asked as they sat down together next to a pair of borrowed cauldrons. 

Dorothea shrugged. “His name’s Zayn. And, well, he wasn’t really my type. Or, you know, the other way around.” She grinned, then. “But I met one of the bass singers afterwards. _Gorgeous_ —and his family has pull in the French ministry. So I consider it a success all the same.”

Louis shook his head, smiling. It seemed Dorothea wasn’t going to be satisfied until she had taken over the world. Then again, with family like hers...

They were supposed to be brewing a Calming Draught, which Louis knew as a temperamental potion, but not an overly difficult one. He kept an eye on the instructions and went about his work, but soon lost his focus and started looking around the classroom instead.

Liam, ever the goody-two-shoes Hufflepuff, was sitting with Gloria at the next table cutting his scarab beetles into agonisingly perfect quarters. And at the table behind them, the same Zayn who had somehow managed to escape Dorothea’s net was curiously enough not cutting his scarabs at all, but putting them into his cauldron whole, one by one. 

Louis watched him with interest (and quite a bit of apprehension), frowning at the other ingredients lined up on Zayn’s table—none of them were prepared, and there were no knives or other tools in sight. Curious.

Liam was clearly noticing it too, judging by the way he winced every time Zayn dropped another beetle in. Finally, he seemed to not be able to stand it any longer. “You need to cut the scarabs into quarters,” he said, turning towards Zayn. “Otherwise, you’ll get a bad reaction from your potion.”

Frankly, Louis was surprised that Zayn’s potion was still inside the cauldron. Not only that, but it looked quite impeccable. Louis looked on more closely as Zayn merely raised an eyebrow at Liam and added another beetle. His fingers moved in a small, slicing motion just as he let the beetle drop; Louis’s interest was definitely peaked.

“ _Non! Il faut_ —how do you say ‘cut’ in French?” Liam said, trying at the same time to convey his meaning to Zayn with some spectacularly bad sign language. “Gloria, help me.”

“ _Liam te trouve très sympa,_ ” Gloria told Zayn, but with a look that was rather more impish than what seemed necessary for Potions instructions. “ _Il est très timide, et parfois il fait des choses qui sont franchement stupides, mais à l’autre côté, il a une bite énorme. Je l’ai vu se changer au lac l’été dernier_.”

Whatever she said, it made Zayn’s focus falter, and the beetles still on his table shot off and splashed into Louis's cauldron, where the potion immediately began to hiss and smoke menacingly.

" _Merde!_ " Zayn swore, moving over to Louis's station and pushing him and Dorothea out of the way. The cauldron started shaking, and Louis quickly threw a Containment Charm on it as he backed away, hoping it would be strong enough to hold until everyone could get out of harm’s way. Liam and Dorothea were right next to him, while Gloria had already made it to the back of the room and was shouting in French at the rest of the class—who seemed to be fully incapable of grasping the danger they were in; every single one of them remained calmly at their tables, and Zayn—who was clearly either daft or suicidal—was standing serenely right next to Louis's cauldron with one of his hands outstretched.

"Liam, no!" Gloria cried suddenly, and Louis barely had time to register movement at his side before Liam was leaping past him and up to Zayn, tackling him to the floor in a stunning display of Hufflepuff idiocy.

The two of them hit the ground, the cauldron shook dangerously, and Louis braced himself for the inevitable carnage.

And then nothing happened. No explosion, just the sounds of students stirring their potions and talking quietly among themselves.

As Louis looked back up, his cauldron was simmering happily over its flame, no angry sparks or smoke in sight. Next to it, Zayn was getting to his feet, brushing down his clothes and talking away in rapid, angry-sounding French while Liam seemed torn between apologising profusely and arguing right back.

“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Louis asked, turning to Dorothea, who was still by his side.

“Only parts of it,” Dorothea admitted, sounding put-out by the fact. “Zayn’s saying something about how he had everything under control… It’s hard to hear with Gloria trying to translate on top of the yelling... Oh, wow, Liam did _not_ like whatever she just told him.”

“ _Ça suffit! Calmez-vous!_ ”

Louis’s attention snapped to the front of the class, where their professor was looking up from grading papers, clearly as unconcerned as the rest of the class about the potential explosion, but all the more cross when it came to people being rowdy because of it. Louis quickly made his way back to his table, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

“ _Monsieur Malik, il y a un problème?_ ” the professor asked, raising an eyebrow at Zayn, who visibly straightened.

“ _Pas du tout. Un malentendu, tout simplement. Je suis désolé._ ”

He glared at Liam one last time before walking back to his own table, stopping next to Louis’s on the way and grabbing a handful of the unused beetles still lying there.

“ _Les miens sont dans ta potion,_ ” he told Louis. “ _Attends, je vais juste—_ ” He put his hand next to Louis’s cauldron again and made a sweeping motion with two fingers. “ _Voilà. elle est mieux équilibrée maintenant. A plus._ ”

Louis looked after him in surprise; then he looked down at his potion. 

It looked absolutely perfect. Far better than Louis had expected, considering first his lackluster work on it and then the whole almost-blowing-up incident. He looked over at Zayn’s table again, and watched him continue to work on his own potion—still throwing in the ingredients without any visible preparation but with a look of high concentration on his face, and his hands kept moving.

“Did you know you could do Potions with wandless magic?” he asked Dorothea, who was chopping up chamomile flowers with great intensity.

“They have wandless options for every class here,” Dorothea said. “I spoke to one of father’s friends about it. Apparently, wizards and witches with an affinity for the Dark Arts are given special classes from the start to master focus and control. Clearly, it pays off in spades—we all saw that tree, absolutely lovely.” 

“Really?” Louis said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to actually read up on this place,” Dorothea replied primly. “Now, Zayn said he’d balanced your potion for you, so you should be good to start working on step five. Hand me the silver knife, please?”

Louis picked it up to hand it to her, when a thought suddenly hit him. “Do you think that Harry—? I mean, he was in the choir as well, wasn’t he?”

“Our guide Harry?” Dorothea asked. “Well, I suppose it’s possible. He’s got the parentage, clearly.”

Before Louis had the chance to ask her what she’d meant by that last part, the professor got to her feet and came over to them, saying something that clearly meant ‘I’m very displeased with your lack of decorum. Please shut up or suffer the consequences’, judging by the accompanying angry eyebrows.

Really, Louis was a master at the whole foreign language thing.

* * *

“So, Beauxbatons is clearly teaching Dark Magic,” Liam stated as he, Louis, Dorothea and Gloria sat down to lunch. “I’m not sure how to feel about that, to be honest.”

“How so?” Gloria asked. “Don’t tell me you’re one of _those_ people, Payne.”

Liam frowned at her. “Sorry, what?”

“Come on,” Gloria said, clearly getting into her stride. “Dark Magic has been unfairly stigmatised for half a century. I think it’s about time people at home started pulling their heads out of their arses and accepting that just because one lunatic with a vision of enslaving the world and his followers decided to use a few parts of Dark Magic for evil, it doesn’t mean that good, powerful magic that has been around since the Dark Ages—and thereby earned its name—should be boycotted. You all saw Zayn’s potion in class, and a few more, I’d wager. There’s more than one way to skin a kneazle.”

“Growing that tree by music was sublime,” Dorothea said. “I haven’t seen plants grow that fast since father took me to visit my great-great aunt Gwen in Wales.”

“Perhaps you’re more comfortable with another name, Liam,” Louis suggested sweetly. “How about ‘elemental magic’, or ‘traditional magic’, or, wait, this one’s a classic, _wandless- and wordless non-confrontational magic_?”

“It’s not the same,” Liam protested. “A wandless spell is still that same spell. It doesn’t mean—”

“That you’re channeling the magic through your body instead of through your wand?” Gloria cut in. “Because that’s what the difference is between Dark Magic and modern magic really is, Liam—the _conductor_. But yes, let’s call it ‘elemental magic’ if it makes you feel more comfortable, since people who don’t know what they’re talking about have decided to completely change the meaning of one of our oldest and proudest wizarding traditions.”

Liam opened his mouth and then shut it again, clearly taken aback and unsure about how to handle the situation.

Louis smirked. “I don’t know,” he said, very much enjoying the way Liam winced when Gloria looked like she was going to lay into him some more. “I, personally, have great sympathy for dear Liam’s confusion. I mean, since the Wizengamot put a blanket classification on any spell cast will ill intent as ‘Dark’, what does that tell wizards and witches who aren’t blessed with families who know some basic history? Merlin, even I get confused at times. Like when your baby sister hexes her twin because of a pair of shoes. Should I report her to the Aurors? She did put a Tickling Hex on her sister, after all. Definite ill intent, even if the magic itself was accidental. So Dark Magic, yeah?” He leaned in closer to Liam and gave him a hearty clap on the back. “Or we could just skip the BS the Ministry is still sporting and agree on the actual, logical definitions where the Dark Arts are defined by the means of conducting magic, not the spell or intent.”

“Hear, hear!” Gloria said. “Tomlinson, you surprise me. I figured, as a Slytherin, you wouldn’t be wholly uneducated, but that was better than expected. Anything you’d like to share...?”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Louis replied. “My great grandmother had a large collection of books and artifacts at her estate that she used to talk endlessly about to me and my sisters when we were little, but, well—as you know, we’ve been… a bit disconnected from that part of the family as of late.”

He kept his smile cool and confident, readying himself for when Payne would inevitably take a dig at him, his mum or their new life in general. Merlin knew Louis had heard it all both during the divorce and after, when he’d been flooing in and out of school at all hours, trying to help keep his family together and looking a right mess doing it.

Liam didn’t, though—instead he chose to look away from Louis entirely and attack his food with renewed vigour.

Louis felt his smile falter, not sure of what to think. Liam was a Hufflepuff. An incredibly irritating goody-two-shoes-always-doing-extra-credit-projects-and-talking-to-professors-after-class-to-tell-them-how-fascinating-he-found-their-subject kind of person. He took his position as Prefect far too seriously and seemed to have made it his mission to stop any student from having the least a bit of fun. And with the way Louis and Gloria had just ridiculed him, Louis figured that Liam would have jumped on the chance to get Louis back.

And yet he hadn’t. Louis didn’t quite know what to make of that.

“So!” Dorothea exclaimed, looking between the rest of them with slight apprehension. “Who’s ready for dessert?”

* * *

Lunch took on a much lighter tone when the other half of their group ambled in, taking their seats next to the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs while talking a mile a minute about the Divination class they’d just had.

“I’m telling you, it was the weirdest thing,” Niall said. “I mean, I usually just gaze into whatever thing needs to be gazed into, recite some of the stuff my nana says when she’s giving us all terrible advice, add some doom and gloom and make my accent really thick. But this was completely different. I saw a bunch of mermaids in that bowl of mist. I really did!”

“Are you sure you didn’t fall asleep and dream them?” Priya asked. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“And Padmam managed astral projection for a minute at the end,” Niall continued happily. “That’s NEWT level, that is. All the French people were really impressed. We Hogwarts students are rocking it.”

“Yeah, well,” Louis said. “Glad you had fun. What’s on for this afternoon, anyone know?”

“Mate, that’s the best part,” Niall replied. “Quidditch game with our roommates!”

Louis immediately felt excitement fill him. He hadn’t been on a broom since the last game of the season (which Slytherin had narrowly lost to Gryffindor, due to gross favouritism by the referee and possibly a doctored Snitch) and going up in the air sounded like an excellent idea.

And if he managed to impress a certain half French-half English boy in the process, well, Louis guessed he’d be able to live with that.

* * *

“Let’s keep it simple,” Louis said, as they were all gathering for a last bit of strategy before the whistle blew. “Give Niall and Ainsley space to do their terrible work—”

“Hey!” Niall said, mock offended, while Ainsley bowed her head regally and said, “Well, thank you. It’s nice to be appreciated.”

“We’ll let them sweep the path clear for us,” Louis continued. “Priya and Padmam, we’ll stick to the Chaser basics—the Pincer, the Ram… you know.”

Priya nodded, while Padmam looked gloomy. 

“There was a reason I chose to do orienteering instead of Quidditch, you know,” he muttered. His sister elbowed him. 

“It’s a friendly game,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

“The last time I was in a _friendly game_ I ended up in an apple tree with a sprained arm...”

“ _One_ time, Merlin’s beard,” Priya exclaimed. “And it was barely a bruise anyway; you make such a fuss...”

“Liam, you just stay in contact with Niall and Ainsley and let them know when you need support at the goals,” Louis continued, speaking over the siblings. “And everyone keep an eye out for the Snitch to help Gloria.”

Gloria winced. “I haven’t played Seeker since second year,” she complained. “I still don’t see why Dorothea couldn’t do it. She actually has some Seeker experience.”

“Knee injury,” Louis said automatically, because as a Slytherin, you always had your Housemate’s back—no matter how deplorable you might actually find it for that Housemate to forsake her country’s team in order to flirt with a foreigner. Then again, André was _very_ attractive, and Louis had to admire the way Dorothea wasn’t letting a petty thing like the pride of her school stand in the way of her romantic endeavours. 

Gloria narrowed his eyes at him but, thankfully, said nothing.

Across the field, the Beauxbatons students were warming up. Harry was among them, currently making his broomstick spin in tight circles—possibly not entirely on purpose, judging from his concentrated scowl. His hair was already sticking to his face with the humid warmth, and his Quidditch robes looked terribly hot. 

He would probably be a lot more comfortable out of them. Which was really a thought Louis should not be having about his competition right before the start of a game.

He cleared his throat and looked away quickly, turning back to his team. “All right then,” he said. “Let’s go defend our honour.”

“Should we do a group cheer?” Niall suggested, looking around at the others. “We could all join hands and swear to beat those dirty frog-eaters, or something?”

Gloria rolled her eyes, but Liam, to Louis’s surprise, actually grinned. 

“Maybe let’s just huddle, kick off and get this game started,” Louis said. 

***

They rose quickly into the air together, and Liam nudged his broomstick closer to Louis. 

“I kept an eye on their warm-ups,” he said. “Their Keeper tends to pull to the left. You could probably use that.”

Louis looked at him, surprised. “Good eye,” he said. 

Liam raised his eyebrows. “I’m not second-in-command in Hufflepuff for nothing, you know,” he said, then added with another surprising grin, “Now come on, let’s win this thing. I need something to boast to my roommate about.”

He veered off towards the goals, and Louis looked after him for a moment. Maybe Liam wasn’t a total stick in the mud after all. 

The whistle blew once, and Louis hurried to get into position. Then the whistle blew again, and as the Quaffle rose into the air, filling Louis’s vision, the Quidditch match began.

* * *

As it turned out, Padmam’s fears weren’t entirely unfounded. The friendly game was soon reduced to more of a free-for-all brawl, something that was in large part due to the cobbled-together nature of the teams. On Louis’s side, Priya and Padmam were both too timid and lacked timing, and Gloria was an extremely uninspired Seeker. Then again, the Beauxbatons team was, if possible, even worse put together. Harry, for instance, was the most appalling Quidditch player Louis had ever seen. 

There were highlights to the match, of course. Ainsley’s and Niall’s combination play was always excellent, after all—in a mind-numbingly annoying sort of way. (It was a relief to be on their side for once.) One of the Beauxbatons girls was a brilliant Chaser, with a ninety-degree turn that made Louis green with envy. And if nothing else, the match was worth every missed goal to hear the way Harry laughed and laughed as he spun and wobbled around the field, missing almost every pass but cheering his team mates on all the time. After about half an hour, Louis found himself laughing as well instead of feeling annoyed whenever Padmam flinched away from the Quaffle or Gloria weaved lazily into the path of Niall or Ainsley, and as the game wore on, even the increasingly shameless fouls on both sides started to seem funny. 

“I don’t know if it shows,” Harry panted, halting next to Louis during a brief time-out, “but Quidditch isn’t really the main sport here.”

Louis grinned. The current pause in the game was to let two Beauxbatons students disentangle themselves from the Hogwarts goal posts, after a misguided attempt to barrel past Liam had failed rather spectacularly. Louis spotted Zayn hovering a bit further off, trying to keep a straight face while talking to Liam, who was actually laughing. 

Liam looked like a lot more fun like that, Louis thought, loose and happy instead of his usual ever-controlled expression. He’d also proven to be just as good at the goal posts as Louis remembered from playing against him before, so he was feeling rather charitable towards the lad at the moment.

“I don’t know,” Louis said, turning his attention back to Harry. “That dive you did before was worthy of Krum himself.”

“Ah, yes.” Harry nodded. “That was definitely on purpose and not due to losing control of my broomstick at all.”

Louis laughed. “What’s the score now?” he said. “I don’t even know any more.”

“I think we may be fucked,” Harry said. “But that’s fine, we rather enjoy that.” He waggled his eyebrows ridiculously, and Louis bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud. 

“Good to know,” he said, and the timeout ended before Harry had time to say anything else, which was kind of a shame, Louis felt.

In the end, Gloria managed to catch the Snitch by what even she admitted was a stroke of pure luck. Privately, Louis wondered if the suspiciously wandlike shape under Niall’s left sleeve could have had anything to do with it, but since they had been flattening the Beauxbatons team on goals alone anyway, he decided not to push it. And a Hogwarts win seemed like a good way to start the week, especially after the mixed impression they’d given in their first class. 

“All right,” Harry called, waving everyone towards him, “so this was a spectacular failure on our part. Of course, as a half-and-half I’m kind of fine with it.”

Zayn nudged his broom closer and gave Harry a playful shove, and Louis grinned. So Zayn did understand some English, then. Good to know. 

“But,” Harry continued, “I think some of us need to drown our sorrows after this. So there will be a small celebration in one of the _La Voix_ common rooms after we’ve all had a chance to shower. See you there?”

“Sure, sounds like fun,” Ainsley said. “What time?”

“Seven?” Harry suggested. “We can get dinner sent to us instead of going down to _La Grande Salle_. Save time for everyone.”

“Works for me,” Niall said. “See you there, mate.”

As everyone started filing out, Louis lingered, taking the time to wipe down his broomstick, until the only people left at the field were himself and Harry, who was taking an unnecessarily long time to put the different balls back in their chests. He was pretty sure that Harry was sneaking looks just as often as Louis did, and a slow hum of anticipation started building inside of him.

After all, what would be a better addition to a two-week stint abroad than a summer fling? Louis felt himself grin as he put his broomstick over his shoulder and walked over to Harry.

“Good game,” he said.

The corner of Harry’s mouth twitched. “For you, yeah,” he replied. “You definitely know your way around a broom.”

“I could give you a few pointers sometime,” Louis said. “It’s all in the grip, see? You need to get it good and tight. No sloppy sliding around on the handle. Precision and dedication, that’s the key to a satisfying result.”

Now Harry was definitely holding back a grin—well, trying to, and not doing all that well. He shook his hair out of his eyes and took a step closer to Louis, and then he just paused, looking into Louis’s face. 

The comment Louis had been about to make about personal space and the not unwelcome invasion thereof died in his throat, and he found himself staring into Harry’s eyes, standing completely still—as though to move an inch would mean to let the moment disappear. The seconds stretched out between them, and Louis realised suddenly that he was holding his breath.

Harry looked away, breaking the spell. “I, uh, shit. I need to speak with the kitchens about the party or we won’t get any food.” He took a step back and picked up the Quidditch chests, then glanced back at Louis quickly. “Um, you’ll find the showers on the floor below our room. My room. Er, you know.”

He nodded abruptly, turned and walked off. 

Louis knocked his broomstick against his forehead. On the one hand, he was almost relieved; it had been such an intense moment that he’d lost control of himself for a while—too much too fast—clearly the adrenaline from the game was still doing a number on his system.

On the other hand, he hoped that the Beauxbatons showers ran really, really cold.

* * *

The party was actually better than Louis had expected. He tended to think of Beauxbatons students as a slightly snobbier type of Ravenclaws, so he wasn’t expecting any excesses, but the evening turned out to hold excellent food, good music and, to Louis’s surprise, rather nice wine. 

“This is great,” he told Harry as they sat down on one of the divans in the common room to enjoy some macarons for dessert. 

“Our sprites are very good cooks,” Harry replied, holding up his plate. “But no matter how I try, I can’t get them to make a decent plum pudding. Spending every Christmas with Mum’s family in Cheshire has given me needs!”

“I can definitely see that,” Louis said. “You have some fantastic food here, but I really miss the English stuff. Baked beans and sausage, Shepherd’s pie, you know?”

“A good trifle,” Harry added dreamily. “My mum makes the best desserts. Last year, when my sister was in the middle of her doctorate and everything—well, it was kind of stressful for everyone, so I stayed here over Christmas. It was beautiful, but I really, really missed the food. And the carols. Over here, it’s mostly ethereal string music for Christmas; nothing you can hum along to.”

He gave a deep, theatrical sigh, then smiled. “But Zayn was staying over as well, so we managed to have some fun. Oh, and speak of the well-dressed devil. _Zayn, ici!_ ”

Zayn, who was passing their sofa, stopped and nodded a greeting.

“ _Zayn, voici mon colocataire, Louis,_ ” Harry said, and Louis drew in breath sharply. The way Harry had said his name, with a French inflection to match the rest of his sentence, was somehow incredibly hot. 

“ _Ça va?_ ” Zayn said, holding out his hand, and Louis shook it. 

“ _On avait cours ensemble ce matin,_ ” Zayn told Harry. He held up his empty plate pointedly and moved away from them again, then turned back for a moment and grinned. “ _Ses mains sont très… habiles._ ”

For some reason, this made the tips of Harry’s ears go a bit red. Louis suddenly really wished he’d taken Niall up on his offer of learning that translation spell.

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh,” Harry said. “He just said you had class together this morning.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“Then what’s with the blush, Styles?” Louis said. “You can’t hide it from me, you know. I have excellent eyesight.”

“Probably the wine.”

“Oh?” Louis said. He moved a bit closer. “It’s not going to your head, is it? Might have to take you back to our room in that case. Put you to bed. Tuck you in good and tight.”

“You know what? I’m going to go get something more to eat,” Harry declared, rising to his feet and promptly tripping over his own two feet. “Aren’t you hungry? I’m starving. Look, there’s some pizza over there. Be right back.”

Louis snickered to himself as he watched Harry stumble across the room, a definite flush to his cheeks now visible all the way from where Louis was sitting.

He’d definitely won that round.

* * *

Louis was still snickering to himself when another body half sat down, half fell on him. 

“Oops, sorry,” Liam said. “Didn’t see you there.”

The bloke weighed about a tonne. Stupid Keeper build with all their heavy muscles. Louis pushed him to the side rather forcefully. “I know it’s hard for you Hufflepuffs to multitask,” he said, “but if you really apply yourself, I’m sure that one day even you’ll learn the art of walking with your eyes open.”

“Oh wow, a joke about us being thick,” Liam threw back. “Never heard one of those before. You want to hear one about evil Slytherins in return? I know a really good one.”

“Is it about how we torture kittens and puppies in our spare time while laughing the demented laugh of the truly black hearted?” Louis asked. “Because if not, don’t bother. Go big or go home, I always say.”

Liam snorted into his glass of wine, then wordlessly reached for a bottle standing on the table in front of them and offered it to Louis. “Cheers, mate.”

Louis gracefully accepted a refill.

“Well played today,” he said, after a while of drinking together in companionable silence. “Hope you’ve been able to boast of the win to your roommate.”

“I did nothing but gloat the whole time we were in our room getting changed,” Liam said. “Well, I tried. The bloke knows absolutely no English, and my French is a bit shit. But I think blowing a raspberry is a pretty universal form of mockery, yeah?” 

Louis grinned. “You know,” he said, “you’re not a bad Keeper.”

Liam raised his eyebrows. “Wow, high praise indeed. Though I remember you being even more impressed after we flattened Slytherin last year.”

Louis started. “What?”

“Well,” Liam said deliberately, “I seem to recall overhearing you telling your teammates that if it wasn’t for me, you might have stood some chance. In not exactly flattering terms, but still. I like to consider it a compliment.”

And then, as Louis was still trying to come up with something to say to that, Liam grinned suddenly. “No trouble, really. I tend to take my Quidditch seriously, too. And, to be honest, you wouldn’t have wanted to hear what I had to say about your Morgan Manoeuver after that game. I was pretty tired of trying to block you.”

Louis grinned back, raising his glass. 

“To mutual annoyance, then,” he said, and Liam clinked their glasses together. 

Niall and Ainsley came up to them, Harry and Zayn trailing behind them. All three boys were holding glasses of the same red wine as everybody else’s, while Ainsley had something lilac-coloured in hers. 

“Good game!” Niall said, flopping down in the sofa and nudging Liam, then nodded at Zayn. “You were pretty great. Uh. _Bien._ You,” he added, turning to Harry, “were awful. Are you sure your mum’s English?”

Harry grinned at him. “I’m pretty good at pegasus polo, if that helps.” He turned to Ainsley. “What are you drinking?”

Ainsley held up her glass and gave it a considering look. “Something my roommate gave me; from her hometown or something. I don’t know, she’s so shy—barely says anything. But this is pretty good. Kind of limey.”

“Isn’t your roommate Nadine?” Harry said, looking suddenly alarmed. 

“Yeah, why?” Ainsley took another sip of her drink—and then, with a startling popping noise, two rabbit ears poked up out of her hair. 

Louis started, and Liam let out a shocked curse. 

Ainsley put her drink down, then slowly and carefully felt her way across her hair and up her newly acquired ears. 

“I’m going to hex her into oblivion!” she exclaimed, and before anyone had time to say anything, she’d turned on her heel and left. 

Niall exploded into laughter. “Oh, that’s amazing,” he gasped. “It’s been ages since anyone got the drop on her like that!”

“Is she all right?” Harry asked, looking concerned. “I mean, Nadine has a bit of a nasty streak, and that was a rough trick to play…”

“She’s fine,” Niall said, waving a hand. “She’s probably just gone to look up ways to retaliate. She loves a good prank, Ains.”

“Even when she’s the one having to be de-jinxed?” Louis asked. Niall grinned back at him. 

“Especially then. She’s a good sport. So, anyway,” he continued, turning to address the group at large, “what are the girls like here at Beauxbatons? Do you reckon I have the chance of a snog tonight? I _was_ part of the heroic Hogwarts Beater team, after all.”

He puffed out his chest, bringing the large shamrock pinned to his robes into better view. It was one that Louis had seen him wearing on numerous occasions back at Hogwarts, except Niall had clearly applied some kind of translation spell to it—it now read “Baise-moi, je suis Irlandaise” instead of the original “Kiss me, I’m Irish”. 

“It’s very… direct,” Harry said.

“That’s me,” Niall said happily. “Always be upfront, that’s me policy.”

“That’s good,” Harry replied. “But you might get slapped.”

Niall frowned. “Why’s that?”

“Well,” Harry said, “you know, because of the…” He made a rather rude gesture, that made Liam’s eyes widen and Louis nearly choke on sip of wine he’d just taken.

“Sorry, what?”

“ _Baise-moi_ ,” Harry said. “It means, you know…” He made the gesture again, more vigorously.

“I thought it meant ‘kiss me’.”

“No, ‘kiss me’ is _embrasse-moi_ ,” Harry explained patiently. “ _Baise-moi_ is ‘fuck me’.”

Next to Louis, Liam started coughing heavily.

“ _Et ‘irlandaise’ est la forme féminine,_ ” Zayn added, making the rest of them turn to Harry.

“He said that you’re using the feminine form of ‘Irish’. Means you’re a girl,” Harry translated.

“So my pin actually says ‘fuck me, I’m an Irish girl’?” Niall asked.

“Yes.”

Niall looked at Harry, then down at his pin. Then he shrugged his shoulders and leant back against the sofa. “Works for me.”

Louis caught Harry’s eye and raised his eyebrows, and after a moment, Harry grinned at him. Louis grinned back, trying to tell himself that it was very natural that his face should feel so hot all of a sudden—it was very warm in the common room, after all. 

The two of them stayed on the sofa, talking about anything and everything, drinking wine and telling some truly horrible jokes. Other people came and went, and every time someone sat down next to one of them, Louis and Harry seemed to end up just a little bit closer to one another.

Two French girls that Louis hadn’t talked to much and who were probably Gloria and Dorothea’s roommates sat down at the other end of the sofa. Louis oh-so-casually lifted his arm and draped it across the back, cleverly pulling Harry those last couple of inches closer in the process.

Harry giggled as he moved, falling into Louis’s side and not-so-carefully putting his head on Louis’s shoulder. Louis’s breath caught in his throat.

“‘m so drunk,” Harry murmured, turning his face into Louis’s chest and rubbing it up and down like a particularly friendly cat. “All sleepy.”

“Me too,” Louis said, which was at least 80% true. The drunk part definitely was, and he was sure he would be very sleepy if it wasn’t for the fact that every inch of his body that Harry was in contact with currently felt excitingly, wonderfully alive.

“Poke me if I fall asleep on you,” Harry mumbled. “I’ll wake up, promise.”

“Sure thing,” Louis replied and pulled him in a little closer.


	3. Chapter Three

Louis woke up with a mess of brown curls in his face, tickling his nose something wretched. It took him a few moments to situate himself—his room, _not_ his bed, warm body draped half on top of him, clothes still on, massive headache—leading him to the conclusion that the last few glasses of wine the night before had probably not been such a good idea.

Or maybe it had. Next to him, Harry shifted in his sleep, sliding one of his legs more snugly around both of Louis’s, and Louis felt a deep sense of warmth spread through him. He surreptitiously felt his way down his own body, and noted with equal amounts of relief and disappointment that not only were all his clothes still on, but they didn’t even seem to have been particularly tugged at.

He raised his right hand to his lips, trying to decide if they felt somehow different than they had the night before. From what he remembered, he and Harry had been sitting on a sofa, talking about everything and nothing at all, but after that, things were a bit blurry.

Harry’s face was right next to his, and Louis realised with a pang how easy it would be to just tip his head a couple of inches and lean in for a kiss. It felt like such a natural thing to do—and surely they must have kissed already, if they’d ended up in the same bed?—still, something made him hesitate. Harry’s face looked so peaceful when he slept; Louis reached out and carefully tucked one of the stray curls in behind his ear.

Harry stirred, and for a split second, Louis considered bolting, escaping back to his own bed and avoiding a potentially awkward morning after. Then Harry opened his eyes and smiled, and Louis felt his own face mirroring the gesture.

“Hi,” Harry said, voice low and rough with sleep. “I thought I’d dreamt you.”

“Er,” Louis replied intelligently, and the smile on Harry’s lips widened.

“Last night,” Harry said. “I was half-asleep, but I remember you dragging me back from the party. We knocked into several walls. I think one of the portraits shouted at us. I wasn’t sure it was real, but you’re here. So I guess—yeah.”

Louis swallowed. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, making Harry’s eyes go from green to a deep, turquoise blue that made Louis think of white beaches and rolling waves. His heart had to be beating much too fast in his chest, because he could almost hear it as a phantom rushing sound of the ocean in his ears. He closed his eyes and leaned in, helpless against the sudden pull in his body.

The sound of a violin launching into a cheery _allegro_ cut through the air, and Harry scrambled back, almost falling off the bed.

“Classes,” he said, getting out of bed and looking around for his clothes until he seemed to realise that he was, in fact, already wearing them. “I mean breakfast. And then classes. We should get up.”

Louis blinked at him; his body still felt a bit dazed, as though he’d been hit with an _Impedimenta_ and was only just throwing it off.

“I’m so sorry,” Harry said, looking pleadingly at Louis, as though afraid Louis was going to be angry with him. Louis frowned and shook his head, hoping to clear it.

“It’s OK?” he tried, hoping it would be the right thing to say, because he had no idea what Harry was supposed to be apologising for. “Um. Breakfast?”

Harry positively beamed at him, and Louis figured that whatever strange thing had just happened, it could wait until after he’d had a nice cup of black tea. 

Almost as soon as they’d entered the _Grande Salle_ , however, Louis spotted an absolutely glaring love bite on the back of Liam’s neck, and figuring out what might have been going on in Harry’s head that morning got instantly bumped down on his list of priorities.

Liam was blushing. Profusely. And pointedly looking anywhere except for right across the table from him, where a certain Zayn Malik was casually munching on a croissant.

Louis bit his lower lip to keep himself from laughing out loud and sat down to breakfast.

* * *

“How’s Ainsley’s war going?” Louis heard Harry ask Niall a couple of days later. “Last time I saw Nadine, she was only speaking in Haikus.”

Niall sighed theatrically. “I’ve hardly spoken to Ainsley since the party. She spends all her free time looking up jinxes.”

“Right, so she’s clearly been compromised by the French,” Louis said, giving Harry a mock-dirty look. “I can’t help but feel that we’re being picked off one by one—what do you say, Niall?”

“Well, the Patils sure seem to enjoy spending time with each other’s roommates,” Niall replied happily. “And Payne’s _still_ busy blushing all over the place and thinking he’s being subtle. Have to say, I kind of like it. It’s very entertaining if nothing else.”

“Don’t forget Dorothea,” Louis said. “From what Gloria tells me, she’s practically engaged.”

“Ah well,” Niall said. “Can you blame her? The bloke’s well fit and rich and powerful to boot. I’m depressingly straight, and even I’d consider hitting that.”

Harry choked on a mouthful of hot chocolate. Louis clapped him helpfully on the back, and well, if his hand happened to linger a bit even after Harry had stopped coughing, no one would be able to prove a thing.

“I’m meeting my roommate and a few more people to go flying this afternoon,” Niall said later, as they were all getting ready to leave for class. “You two want to come with?”

“You sure it’s wise to put Curly here on the back of a broom?” Louis asked, bumping his shoulder against Harry’s teasingly. “Wouldn’t want him to fall out of the sky.”

Harry rolled his eyes and bumped Louis back. “I’m not completely hopeless, you know,” he said, then laughed as both Louis and Niall gave him an incredulous look. “All right, all right, maybe I am. I guess air isn’t exactly my element. But flying’s still fun, so, yeah, let’s do it.”

“Sounds good,” Louis said, getting momentarily lost in Harry’s smile before realising it and swiftly turning his attention back to Niall. “When and where are you guys meeting up?”

* * *

“This way, come on!”

Louis swerved to the left, following Harry towards an overpass in the mountains. They’d broken off from the rest of their group a while back, and Louis felt a thrill as his broom picked up speed and brought him into position right next to Harry.

“Any plan for where we’re going?” he asked, half-shouting to make himself heard in the wind.

“Just over there!” Harry shouted back, pointing towards what looked like a ledge a bit further on. “Race you, come on!”

He sped off, and Louis leaned forward, urging his own broom to go faster.

He landed on the ledge a good twenty seconds ahead of Harry, whose broom had decided to take a left turn and was now bouncing up and down in the air as Harry tried to steer it right again. Louis dropped his own broom in the grass and took a seat, making a point of looking like he’d been waiting forever and a day when Harry managed to join him.

“Gah!” Harry exclaimed, once his feet were firmly on the ground. “Why can’t flying be like swimming? I swear, that broom has something personal against me. It’s like it’s trying to pull me down.”

“I think the thing doing the pulling is called ‘gravity’,” Louis replied. “Don’t go blaming the poor broom, now.”

“It’s supposed to be magic,” Harry argued, giving his broom a dirty look. “I maintain that it’s just got it in for me.”

“So why this place?” Louis asked, taking Harry’s broom from him and putting it next to his own. “The view is spectacular, have to say. Did you lure me here to look at the sunset and do all sorts of indecent things to my poor, unsuspecting body?”

Okay, so that came out sounding a lot more hopeful and much less joking than Louis had intended for it to. Then again, any means to an end…

“Actually,” Harry said, “I wanted to show you something.”

He held out his hand to Louis and pulled him to his feet, then led him around a mass of protruding rock to the far edge of the ledge. He drew his wand and pointed it at the mountainside, forming a line of steps down to a second, much smaller ledge some ways below.

“Close your eyes,” Harry said, and because Louis had clearly left all his ability for rational thought back in the castle, he did. Harry kept a hold of his hand, guiding him further and further down until, at last, they came to a stop.

“All right, you can look,” Harry said.

Louis opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by rock. They were in a cave of some sort—one that must still be opening up to the sky somewhere, because there was quite a bit of light shining in—on another small ledge. Louis went up to the edge and looked down; there was a drop of about a hundred feet and then dark, still water—some kind of underground lake.

“I found this place my first year,” Harry told him, sitting down on the ledge and motioning for Louis to join him. “I was so homesick back then, and everything in the castle was confusing, so I went off a lot on my own, even though we weren’t technically allowed to. And one day, I found this place. There’s a clear spring feeding this pool, and something about the minerals in the rock makes the water feel like velvet. I love it here.”

“It’s lovely,” Louis said, meeting Harry’s eyes. “Actually reminds me a bit of home. The Slytherin common room is right beneath the Great Lake at Hogwarts; some of the rooms have transparent ceilings.”

“That sounds amazing,” Harry replied. “How long do you have left? Just the one year?”

“Yeah, I’m sitting my NEWTS next spring,” Louis said. “What about you? Do you have the same exam system or how does it all work?”

“We take exams after Year Six,” Harry replied. “And then the advanced level after Year Seven. I’m starting Year Six this autumn, so I have them all left to do. Zayn did his _BUSES_ last month, said they were pretty crippling.”

“He’s a clever one, though, right? Probably sailed right through with all the Dark Magic he knows as well.”

“He is,” Harry confirmed. “Exams are different for the Dark Magic specialist students, though. It’s really tough from what I hear. Zayn had to grow nine different plants, turn them into a potion and present it to the examiner in a cup of conjured flames. All without a wand.”

Louis just gaped at him. For his own OWLS, he’d been asked to Transfigure a shoebox into a cat. He cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject. “So what are your plans after school then?”

“I want to travel,” Harry said without hesitation. “Visit every continent, swim in every sea. I want to go to Japan and South-East Asia. See the ningyo, practice my Mermish a bit.”

“Sounds excellent.”

“What about you, then?” Harry asked. “Any grand plans for after you graduate?”

Louis shrugged. “Find work, I guess. Don’t really know in what field yet.”

“Right, yeah, but what would you _want_ to do?” Harry insisted. “If you could do anything at all?”

Louis swallowed and turned his head to look down at the water below. He’d done his best not to think about impossible things since his parents had split—really, what was the point of it when he already knew he couldn’t have them? Still, this exchange was supposed to be a respite from that, and Harry seemed genuinely interested in the answer.

“Quidditch,” he replied. “Playing professionally, I mean. Every child’s dream, right? Being famous, travelling the world, being paid heaps of Galleons for doing something you love.”

“Sounds like a good dream,” Harry agreed. He shifted closer to Louis, just enough for the side of their arms to touch. “I’d be pants at it, obviously. Couldn’t put a Quaffle through a hoop for the life of me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Louis said, grinning. “I hear the Chudley Cannons are hiring. You could probably have a decent career there.”

Harry turned his head, squinting at him. “Is that some sort of Quidditch joke?” he said. “You’ve got the wrong bloke for it. And, well, country, for that matter.”

Louis laughed. Being with Harry made reality seem so very far away.

“So,” Harry said, standing up and giving Louis his hand, “do you want to take a leap of faith?”

“Down there?” Louis asked, letting Harry pull him to his feet and glancing down with some apprehension at the sheer drop. 

“Sure. The water’s really deep. It’s not dangerous at all.”

Looking into Harry’s eyes, Louis wasn’t at all sure that was true. 

“We can do it together if you want,” Harry continued, grinning and moving even closer, lacing their fingers together. 

Louis grinned back. “See, now you’re making it sound attractive.”

“Oh no, you’ve unveiled my dastardly scheme,” Harry deadpanned. “On three?”

Louis nodded, and Harry counted down. They jumped off the ledge together, hands clasped tightly. Louis was still laughing when he broke the surface of the water. 

Of course, that just led to accidentally inhaling a lot of cold water. Despite the burning sensation up his nose and down his lungs, however, Louis found he couldn’t care less. Not when Harry immediately started fussing over him, folding him up in his arms and holding him up in the water as Louis spluttered and coughed.

Once Louis could breathe properly again, he waited for an opening and then dunked Harry’s head into the water.

Really, it was the only proper thing to do. And the resulting water fight was absolutely glorious.

* * *

“Louis. Louis, wake up!”

Louis opened his eyes blearily and looked up to find Harry standing over him, looking much too awake. 

“What time is it?” Louis muttered. “I haven’t even heard that bloody string orchestra yet. Did they cancel it today or what?”

“No, well—it’s a little earlier than the usual wake-up call,” Harry said. “Um. Half five, to be precise. But I thought, since classes start late today—do you want to come on an adventure?”

Louis dragged himself upright and rubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “I have the chance to sleep in for the first time since I got here—after _five whole mornings_ of sleep-deprived torture—and you want to drag me out at the _crack of dawn_?”

Harry didn’t look nearly apologetic enough. 

“Adventure,” he repeated happily. 

Louis grinned. “I don’t know—I feel like walking back to the common room is adventure enough, sometimes. I’m pretty sure one of the statues tried to feel me up yesterday.”

“This is a little more out of bounds,” Harry said. “How do you feel about nymphs?”

Louis looked up at him, trying to see if he was serious. “You mean wood nymphs? That’s not just a myth?”

“Oh no, we have an agreement with them. They come in to serenade us during our winter feast. We’re not really supposed to visit them in their glade, though, but I’ve always wanted to go. Want to come?”

“Isn’t that against the rules?” Louis asked. Harry scoffed. 

“Like you haven’t ever gone into the Forbidden Forest?”

“How do you know about the Forbidden Forest?”

“English mum, remember,” Harry said, grinning. “So, how about it?”

Louis hesitated. A few years ago, he would have jumped at the chance, but that was before he’d come to realise just how much his mum and sisters depended on him. Until Louis and at least one of his sisters were out of school and had a steady income, money would keep being tight, and, as his Head of House had frequently told him back when he was still causing trouble and bending rules left and right, recklessness wasn’t suitable for a Slytherin, anyway.

So on the one hand, there was always a risk in dealing with any kind of magical creatures—here just as much as back home. On the other, how dangerous could a bunch of singing trees really be?

Also, Harry was looking at him with that dangerously inviting smile. And OK, maybe Louis was going slowly insane from the way Harry liked to flip his hair before tying it up in the morning (and the fact that he usually did it in just his pants didn’t actually help), but being this affected by a simple smile was just ridiculous. Louis had known him for less than a week, for Merlin’s sake.

“So, are you coming?” Harry asked. Honestly, dimples like that should not be legal. 

“Sure,” Louis said. “Why not.”

Really, what was the worst that could happen?

* * *

The forest around them was green and curiously silent, devoid of birdlife. Beneath them, there was soft moss, muffling their steps. 

“So, you’re sure about this, then,” Louis said, trying not to sound like too much of a wimp about it. 

“I’ve met nymphs tons of times before,” Harry said casually. “But just in the castle. I’ve always longed to meet them in their home.”

_You’re welcome here._

Louis turned abruptly. 

“Did you hear that?” he asked. Harry grinned at him. 

“I think they’re here,” he whispered. 

They came out into a glade, and Harry stopped short, smiling. Louis did, too, wondering what exactly he was looking at. 

It was like looking at a puzzle picture. One moment, the forest was empty of anyone but him and Harry. Then the focus shifted, and he saw arms instead of branches, hair instead of leaves, and eyes everywhere. 

There was a whole group of them, and as Louis watched, they moved forwards out of the background scenery of the wood. He couldn’t see how they moved, exactly—one moment, they looked just like trees, rooted to the ground, and in the next they were running around him. They looked wildly different from one another, too. There was one like an oak, all stocky and gnarled, moving slowly. Another like a willow tree danced quickly backwards and forwards, laughing all the while. There was one like an aspen, and one like a pine, and on and on—rowan, linden, fir, ash. 

“Wow,” Louis said softly. 

Harry bowed low. “Greetings from Beauxbatons,” he said. “I have enjoyed your singing at many winter feasts. I hope we’re not intruding.”

“Polite guests are always welcome,” the oak said, but somewhat reluctantly. 

Louis moved closer to Harry. “They speak English?” he muttered. 

Harry shrugged. “Not really. It’s more that we understand tree-ish. Sort of.” He raised his voice again. “My friend is a visitor from England.”

“A fair isle to be sure,” the oak conceded. 

The willow dashed forward again, standing suddenly right above Louis and staring down at him. Its eyes were dark, and somehow frightening—they were at once almost human, and like nothing living Louis had ever seen. The aspen moved forward, too, its leaves rustling and sighing. 

“I like visitors,” it said. It reached out as though to touch Louis’s hair, but changed its mind at the last second and danced away, giggling. 

The rest of the nymphs came forwards in turn, looking at Louis and Harry as though they were some kind of exotic beasts and gathering further off in droves to point twig-like fingers and laugh. Harry grinned, too. 

“Don’t be offended,” he murmured. “I don’t think they often get the chance to see humans up close.”

“Yeah, sure,” Louis said. 

“I like this one,” the willow said, bending down over Harry and letting its leafy hair fall over him like a curtain. Harry laughed, shaking himself free, and the willow nymph laughed back at him, the sound deep and earthy. One that was like a cherry tree surged forward, shaking its head and sending petals raining down over Harry. 

“He was made to be crowned in flowers,” it said. 

“And this one—he’s the summer to that one’s spring,” the aspen said in a windy whisper, leaning its crown to one side and looking at Louis quizzically. “More sunshine—but more thunder, too.”

“Stay,” something hissed softly at Louis’s feet, and when he looked down, he saw ivy winding itself around his leg, slowly tightening. “ _Play_.”

Louis jumped back, stepping out of the coiling vines as quickly as he dared. “Harry, mate?” he said, swallowing. “We’re probably missing breakfast. I think we should be heading back.”

He stepped backwards slowly, glancing behind him to make sure the way was clear, then stopped. “Harry?”

Harry was standing quite still, grinning up at the willow. The sun came out from behind the clouds and shone down on him, and for a moment, he was a fairy-like creature just as alien as the nymphs. 

“I’m starting to really feel the lack of my morning cuppa,” Louis said pointedly, and the aspen frowned suddenly at him. It had the desired effect, however, in that Harry shook himself out of his trance. 

“Coming,” he said, raising his hand in goodbye to the nymphs. “I’m coming.”

Louis, still stepping slowly backwards, bumped into something. Pine needles rustled as two branches moved slowly to encircle him.

“But you only just came here,” the pine nymph said, its voice deep and slow. 

Louis tore himself free with a stifled curse. The pine’s needles were soft, but its branches had still managed to scratch him badly. The sight seemed to finally wake Harry up completely, and he stared at Louis, mouth opening in shock. 

“We’ve barely had time to greet you,” the willow said, letting its hair fall over Harry again. This time, however, Harry disentangled himself quickly and angrily, and the willow bent back. Its face furrowed, and the laughter died away. 

“You should _stay_ ,” it said, and the emphasis on the last word made a chill run down Louis’s back. Harry looked at him with wide eyes and then made a visible effort to control himself. He turned back to the gathering of nymphs and bowed again, but much more stiffly. 

“We need sustenance,” he said. “It’s necessary for us to depart now, but we will take the memory of sun and song with us, treasuring this moment.”

“Stay here instead,” the willow insisted. “There is sun here, and the water runs clear and cold through the wood. What more would you need?”

“Unfortunately, we need more than that,” Harry said tightly. 

“We could make it so that you don’t,” the aspen hissed, suddenly right there next to Louis. It reached out its branches, but before Louis had time to do anything, there was a flash of light and the aspen reared back, bending away as though caught in a storm. 

“Louis, come on!” Harry shouted and, grabbing Louis’s arm, turned them both around and ran. 

As they ran, stumbling over tree roots and slipping on moss, Louis heard creaking and cracking behind him. 

“What did you do?” he gasped. 

“Weather charm,” Harry panted back, pushing a branch out of their way. “Wind. Won’t hold them for long, though. We need to get out of here.”

He gripped Louis’s hand tightly, and Louis squeezed back. With his other hand, he pulled his wand out of his pocket, sending up a stream of red flares as they ran. The chance of anyone seeing them was slim at best, but still…

They had been running and stumbling for what felt like much longer than it had taken them to get to the glade when there was a loud crash behind them, and the trees all around them rustled and creaked. 

“I think they’re here,” Louis said, and then they saw the willow ahead, blocking their path. 

They stopped short, but Harry, to Louis’s relief, didn’t let go of his hand. 

“You should just stay and play with us,” the willow said. “We could sing and dance together. You must have a wonderful voice, full of sea breeze and salt.”

Harry stiffened. “So that’s it,” he said. “That’s what you want.”

“What is?” Louis asked, feeling himself start to panic. “Harry—?”

“You should add your song to ours,” the willow said firmly, moving forward towards them. 

Harry’s hand tightened on Louis’s again. “I’m really sorry I got us into this,” he said quietly. 

“No, it was my fault,” Louis said, swallowing. “I wasn’t polite.”

“You weren’t,” the aspen whispered, from somewhere over to the right.

“Do you think Shield Charms will be any good?” Louis asked. Harry shrugged unhappily. 

“I think,” he said hesitantly, “I think I know why they might like me. Maybe if I distract them—”

“Not a bloody chance,” Louis snapped, and he gripped Harry’s hand tight enough to make him wince. “Come on, Shield Charms. Maybe we can force our way through. Together.”

He sent a last red flare up into the sky, then conjured up a Shield Charm. Harry, meanwhile, was sending more of his wind towards the willow. It didn’t seem to be as effective as it had been in the glade, however. 

The aspen attacked suddenly, jabbing towards Louis with sharp fingers. It bounced back against his Shield Charm, however, and retreated, looking affronted. 

“I don’t like this one at all, now,” it said. 

Louis grinned victoriously for a moment, but the nymphs were pressing in again. The Shield Charm was only good as a last defense. He couldn’t use it to force them away. 

“Wish I could do two spells at the same time,” he muttered. Harry nodded, then drew in breath quickly. 

“You’re a genius,” he said. 

“I know,” Louis quipped, trying to keep his spirits up. “Um. Why, exactly?”

For an answer, Harry only moved closer to him, until they were pressed together all the way from their shoulders down to their joined hands. Louis felt Harry’s warmth against him, and then that warmth spread, flowing out into his other hand. 

Another nymph jabbed a branch at him and was thrown back, but this time, it was pushed further away with a great gust of wind. 

“What—” Louis began. Harry grinned at him. 

“Combined spells,” he said. “Should have thought of it before.”

Louis grinned back. Slowly, still keeping themselves pressed tightly together, they began to walk forward. The shield was extending all around them now, strengthened by their combined magic. 

“We make a great team,” Louis said, and Harry grinned at him again. 

Then, just as Louis was beginning to think they might make it, something snagged his foot and he stumbled. The magic faltered as he fell. 

The nymphs were upon them before they even hit the ground, dragging them away from each other and wrapping them up tightly in their branches. Louis felt his wand being torn from his hand, and leaves were suddenly all around him, closing off his line of vision and making it harder and harder to breathe.

As though from a great distance, he could hear Harry fight, but the sounds became steadily more meaningless.

“ _Just relax,_ ” a voice was telling him, smooth and soothing. “ _We’ll make it better, just you see. We’ll have a lovely, endless summer together…_ ”

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, there was a voice shouting at him, sounding very much like his younger twin sisters did when they were arguing over something—all jumbled and shrill. He tried to make it out, but it faded out before he had a chance to fully catch it, replaced instead by the sweet rustling of branches in the wind and the smell of new leaves at the start of summer.

Louis closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath.

And then there was a sudden flare of light, and everything became exceedingly painful.

He fell to the ground—from where he didn’t know—every muscle in his body feeling like it had just been stretched far beyond what it was capable of. He looked up, trying to focus, and saw Niall and Liam with their wands out, throwing spells left and right, and Zayn behind them, crouched down with his hands shoved deep in the ground, magic radiating from him like a shockwave.

Zayn shouted something in French, and the last of the trees’ hold on Louis vanished. And then Liam’s hands were there, pulling him up from the ground. 

“Oh thank Merlin and all his magic,” Louis said faintly. 

“Come on,” Liam said, dragging him along. “Zayn says that if we make it out into the open, we should be fine. Niall’s got Harry. Let’s go.”

They ran onwards together, Zayn taking the rear, and were soon out of the forest again, out on the open expanse in front of the Beauxbatons castle. 

Louis flopped down onto the grass, spreading his arms wide. Harry sat down heavily next to him, looking as exhausted as Louis felt.

“Of all the things I thought I might do today,” Louis gasped, “I did not for one minute think that being chased by evil trees would be on the list.”

“ _Ils sont pas maléfiques!_ ” Zayn snapped. 

“Not evil,” Harry translated tiredly. “It’s just that coming into their home means playing by their rules.”

“So what would have happened if we hadn’t shown up?” Niall asked. 

“I think they wanted to turn us into nymphs as well,” Harry said, wincing. “At least—well, I’m not sure, but I think that might have been on the table.”

There was a thoughtful silence for a few minutes, and then Niall made a disappointed noise. 

“Aw,” he said. “Now I’m upset we made it. I would have loved to see you as a tree, Louis. I think you would have made a lovely crabapple.”

Louis stared at him, and then, to his own surprise, started laughing. He looked at Harry, who did not join in and was instead hugging his legs, looking absolutely miserable.

“Hey,” Louis said softly. “Harry, we’re okay.”

“You could have been hurt,” Harry replied, “I was stupid and reckless and I—”

“Stop,” Louis said firmly, putting a hand on Harry’s knee. Harry looked up at him, startled. “It’s not your fault. I made the decision to go with you. I _wanted_ to go. Things might not have gone the way you thought they would, but we’re okay. And I don’t know about you, but before that ivy tripped me, we were a pretty wicked team.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth twitched. He looked back at Louis almost shyly, but as they looked at each other, it grew into what was unmistakingly a smile.

“We did make a pretty good team.”

“You bet your sweet little bum we did,” Louis confirmed, pushing himself off the ground. “Now, come on. I am absolutely dying for a cuppa.”

He held out his hand to help Harry off the ground, feeling a spark of excitement as Harry took it and let himself be pulled.

“Then let’s go to breakfast,” Harry suggested, and Louis got momentarily lost in how close they suddenly were.

He didn’t let go of Louis’s hand until they were back in the castle.

* * *

“Ah, tea,” Louis said. “This is heaven.”

“Take your time,” Harry said. “We don’t leave for the Côte d’Azur annex until after lunch, so we have the whole morning left.”

“A day at the beach sounds like the perfect way to relax after the ordeal of this morning,” Niall said, leaning back in his chair and munching on a croissant. 

Louis raised his eyebrows at him. “You threw a few spells around. I was almost turned into a tree. Priorities, Niall.”

“What?” Niall looked back at him. “No, I was talking about earlier. Walked in on Pierre in the shower. My eyes, they still burn.”

Harry laughed. “So how did you know to come to our rescue anyway?” he asked.

Niall shrugged. “Liam saw the red sparks you sent off from his room and figured someone was in trouble. His white knight syndrome kicked in big time. I’m not sure how I ended up joining the rescue party, though—I usually have a much better self-preservation instinct.”

Louis squinted at him. “And you said that with a totally straight face,” he said. “Impressive.” 

Niall grinned.

“Wait,” Harry said, frowning, “doesn’t your room face West, though, Liam?”

Liam opened his mouth, and then closed it again, slowly going very red. 

“I—,” he started, then looked helplessly around the room.

“That’s right,” Louis said, very much enjoying the way Liam turned to him with a look of alarm. “Your room does face West, and we were definitely going South. How _curious_.”

“ _Il était avec moi,_ ” Zayn said, perfectly casual. 

Harry grinned. “ _Avec toi, hein? Dis-moi, qu’est-ce qu’il a fait dans ta chambre à cette heure-là?_ ”

“ _Tais-toi,_ ” Zayn said, and Harry grinned even wider. 

“Zayn was showing me some magic,” Liam said, also trying to sound casual. ‘Trying’ being the operative word. 

They were all silent for a moment, while that sentence sank in, and then Niall exploded with laughter. 

“Some _Dark _Magic,” Liam hurried to add. “We were—oh, Circe’s warts. I’m going to go see if the other table has any marmalade left over.”__

“We still have three pots over here,” Harry called after him, but Liam only made a rude gesture over his shoulder and quickened his steps.

* * *

Travelling by mist was quite similar to travelling on the Floo network. There was a sense of floating instead of spinning that was, frankly, quite a bit nicer, and when Louis opened his eyes again and stepped out of a similar archway to the one he’d just left, his robes were slightly damp instead of covered with soot. A quick drying spell and some general confusion later, he and the rest of their group made their way towards a pair of tall doors.

The doors opened and light poured in. A beach stretched out in front of them, blindingly white and with the sea clear and blue beyond it. 

“This is where you have _classes_?” Niall asked, shading his eyes with one hand. “Come on, now, that’s just ridiculous.”

“You like it now,” Harry said, laughing. “But try having lessons in Mermish when it’s twelve degrees in the water and the Vodniks are migrating and on the war path…”

Niall waved a hand, dismissive, and Louis grinned. 

After they had all got changed into their swimwear—and Louis would have thought he’d be used to it by now, but Harry was still just as distracting as the first morning when he’d got out of bed in next to nothing, walking around the room brushing his teeth without knowing or caring about the effects it had on Louis’s poor, just-awake body—they gathered again to head down into the water together.

“Those of you who have breathing spells prepared, use them now,” Harry said, “and Michel will take you down the first way. The rest of you, come here.”

He started handing out globs of slimy-looking, green weeds to the students. Zayn was first in line and shoved the disgusting-looking mess into his mouth, chewing contentedly, then did a perfectly curved dive into the sea. 

“So,” Louis said, as it was his turn. “What on earth are you trying to make me put in my mouth?”

Harry grinned widely at him. “Gillyweed,” he said. “Makes you able to breathe underwater.”

“Is that what you’re using?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not sure I’m going to trust it, then…” Louis said, mock thoughtful. Niall shoved at him. 

“Don’t be such a bloody wuss,” he said, grabbing his own glob of green slime. Louis raised his eyebrows, but followed suit. 

“Dive quickly,” Harry told him, raising his eyebrows with a smile. “Or you’ll be finding it hard to breathe soon.”

Louis shoved the Gillyweed into his mouth, swallowed and followed the others into the water.

* * *

“This way,” Harry said, motioning for Louis, Liam, Niall and Zayn to follow him and shooting off in the opposite direction of the rest of their group. Instead of getting lost in a mass of bubbles, his voice cut clearly through the water, sounding somehow deeper and more melodic than before. Louis swam up next to him, and the way the light from above fell through the water, Harry’s skin took on that ethereal quality again—a faint shimmer that, now that Louis had the context of being in water, suddenly looked a lot like scales.

“What—?” he started, but the only thing that came out was a large bubble. So Gillyweed did not allow for both talking and breathing then. Great.

“I asked Michel to take the rest of the group over to the Hippocampus pastures,” Harry said, looking both excited and a bit apprehensive now. “Come on. There are some people I’d like you guys to meet.”

* * *

They swam for what felt like a long time through the winding _calanques_ , steadily going deeper until Harry stopped before what looked like a solid wall of rock and gestured for the rest of them to come closer.

“Right, I need all of you to put away your wands,” he said. “Strap it to your leg, hide it in your shorts or whatever you want to do, but don’t take it in your hand. Our history isn’t exactly full of wizards coming to call and treating us with respect, so there’s some bad blood to overcome. Which means no wands. Everyone okay with that?”

_Our history_. Louis felt a small chill run down his spine. What was that supposed to mean, exactly? _Whose_ history?

The other boys were nodding, however, so Louis quickly followed suit. Harry shot them all a quick smile and then turned back towards the rock and put a hand against it.

A part of the rock melted away, revealing a narrow passage. Louis saw Liam’s eyes widen in shock and felt himself mirror the expression. He had an idea about where they must be going—what kind of creatures would live in a place like this—but it couldn’t be… could it?

Next to him, Niall caught Louis’s attention by touching his arm, then gestured at his upper half, pointed at his legs and mimed a fish swimming and then did two thumbs up. Louis looked from him to Liam, who gave a curt nod, and then to Zayn, who just rolled his eyes, as though the conclusion was obvious.

So.

Merpeople it was, then. Louis swallowed, even as he felt a thrill of excitement go through him. He’d seen the merpeople who lived in the Great Lake at Hogwarts a couple of times, but he knew that the Mediterranean ones were supposed to be different—and a lot more powerful, with their own special brand of magic. And the way Harry was acting, the words he chose, the slight glimmering of his skin and undisclosed method of breathing underwater…

Louis bit his lip and breathed in deeply through his new gills. He followed right behind Harry as they went through the passage, pushing down a sudden need to swim closer and reach for Harry’s hand. They turned a corner, and the passage came to an end.

“Whoa,” Niall mimed, and Louis fully agreed with him.

In front of them was a vast, underwater cave. Magical plants grew all over the sea bed and underwater lights lit the place with a warm, inviting glow. All along the cave wall were openings, each marked with patterns and symbols Louis couldn’t read. And then there were the merpeople—scores and scores of them, swimming around the cave, talking to each other, playing in some high seaweed off to one side…

Harry led them right over to an opening at the far end of the cave, where several older merpeople were gathered. He bowed low to each of them and said something long and complicated in French that Louis didn’t understand. Then he turned and waved for the rest of them to come forward, introducing them one by one.

When Harry’s eyes landed on him, and Louis heard his own name in the middle of whatever Harry was saying, he bowed as low as he was able, the dangerous situation with the nymphs in fresh memory. The merpeople looked at him for a long time—and Louis dearly hoped he was imagining the hostility in their eyes—and then one of them, an old man with long, white curls and a close-cropped beard, inclined his head ever so slightly in return.

Harry’s face lit up with one of the widest smiles Louis had ever seen on him, and he threw his arms around the neck of the old merman, jabbering away in rapid French that Louis didn’t have the faintest hope of understanding. He looked at Zayn, who gave him a small, pleased smile in return. Clearly, Louis had done something right at least.

“Guys, this is my granddad,” Harry said. “He says he’s very pleased to meet you all.”

Niall let out a big stream of bubbles, then, as everybody stared at him, looked exasperated. _Fun_ , he mimed finally with great exaggeration, and grinned.

Louis, meanwhile, was struggling to keep smiling, especially as the old merman—Harry’s _granddad_ , Circe’s warts—looked at him again, like he was trying to size Louis up and wasn’t too impressed by what he was seeing.

Merlin’s beard, Harry was part merman. Louis wanted to kick himself; all the little things that had confused him about Harry up until then suddenly made a frightening kind of sense. He had a million questions and no idea where to start. And then Harry turned to him, looking at Louis with that smile and those eyes and the whole unfairly attractive face and lovely curls and stupidly fit body, and Louis realised that, mermaid or not, he was really quite stupidly gone for him.

Next to him, Niall let out another enthusiastic stream of bubbles. 

Harry laughed. “I’m sorry that Gillyweed doesn’t allow for talking,” he said. “But granddad and the others have offered to show us around, if that is something you would be interested in?”

There was more general nodding, and Harry waved a hand towards the entrance again. 

“I’ll let them lead the way, then,” he said, and then he and his granddad hung back as the others swam away. Louis caught Harry’s eye, and edged towards the back of group, too. 

Harry smiled and held out his hand.


	4. Chapter Four

Something was different about Harry.

During their tour with the merpeople, he hadn’t left Louis’s side. He’d held his hand for the most part, kept unnecessarily close when pointing out different plants and animals and, on one memorable occasion, put his hand at the small of Louis’s back to guide him through a maze of seaweed.

Something definitely seemed to have changed for him, for no reason that Louis could discern. Not that Louis was complaining. Quite the opposite, actually. Having Harry by his side had helped calm the feelings of shock and apprehension that had lingered, and when they got out of the water, he felt like he was more or less back to himself.

“Thank you for being our guide today,” he told Harry quietly when they were all sitting around on the beach afterwards, having a picnic dinner and basking in the hot sun. “I had a really good time.”

Harry leaned into him a bit more—quite a feat, since they were already touching from their shoulders to their hips—putting his head on Louis’s shoulder and looking up at him from under his lashes. “I’m really happy you came.”

Louis felt a shiver travel all the way down his spine. His eyes fell to Harry’s lips, getting stuck there for a moment before he was able to snap himself out of it. Talking, right. They were talking about the dive. Louis could totally manage that. Should he bring up the mermaid thing? On the one hand, his head was buzzing with questions—everything from what Harry’s extended family looked like and what his upbringing had been like, to what the current political views were towards people of mixed magical race in France—but on the other hand, he felt very keenly that this was something Harry had shown him that not many others got to see. He selfishly wanted to kind of bask in the feeling of being both trusted and singled out before letting his curiosity run loose and risking putting his foot in his mouth. Maybe he should just follow Harry’s lead on this.

“Those underwater plantations were really cool,” he decided on, at last. “I always wondered how one would go about growing Crystalwort, but I guess that— _mmph!_ ”

The rest of the sentence died in his throat, cut off by Harry’s lips coming up to press against his. Harry kissed him with a sense of desperation, like he’d been wanting this for just as long as Louis had and was now kicking himself for holding back.

Louis could definitely relate. He brought a hand up to tangle in Harry’s hair, kissing him back like he’d wanted to almost from the moment they had bumped into each other in the bathroom on the first day. Harry’s lips were just as warm as Louis had imagined, sliding against his own like little pieces of heaven, and, wow, Louis really needed to stop thinking if those were the best images his mind could come up with right now.

Harry’s arms went around Louis’s neck, pulling him in more tightly, and Louis went happily. He wanted to lie back in the sand and pull Harry on top of himself, wanted to roll them over and kiss his way down Harry’s chest—wanted a million things that he was all too painfully aware they could not actually do in present company.

Harry broke the kiss slowly, pulling back with a dazed look on his face that made Louis want to preen. He met Louis’s eyes and flushed beautifully. Dear Circe, Louis wanted to devour him.

“Um,” Harry said, “sorry about that? You were saying something?”

Louis swallowed, unable to stop the way his eyes kept falling back to Harry’s lips. “Was I?”

“Yeah, something about—you know what, I don’t have the faintest,” Harry replied. “I just—I’ve been wanting to kiss you for _days_ , and it was—I don’t—”

“Let’s get out of here,” Louis said. “Come on, we have a shared room to take shameful, inappropriate advantage of.”

“Yeah, I don’t think what I want right now is what the professors had in mind when they were telling us about international magical networking,” Harry managed, quickly following Louis’s lead as Louis pulled them both to their feet. “I mean, yes. Yes, please, let’s go back _right now_.”

“Yes, please do,” Liam said drily right next to Louis’s ear, effectively ruining the moment. Louis pulled back, turned his head and found Liam, Zayn and Niall all looking at him and Harry with varying levels of evil grins on their faces.

Right. In hindsight, teasing Liam mercilessly every chance he’d got for the past few days might not have been such a smart move on Louis’s part.

“It’s not that I mind a free show,” Niall added. “Just not from my mates, yeah? I feel our relationship needs a bit of mystery to keep the romance fresh.”

Louis narrowed his eyes at the three of them in warning and then pulled Harry in for another kiss, short and intense and completely addictive. “You should tell me about those thoughts of yours on the way,” he suggested quietly, putting his mouth right next to Harry’s ear and smiling to himself when he felt a shiver run through Harry’s body. “In great detail, please.”

Harry wrapped his arms around him and Apparated them both back to the Mist Arch.

* * *

Beauxbatons castle was much too bloody large, Louis decided, forcing himself to pull away from Harry and the wall they’d been snogging against to drag them through yet another corridor lying between them and their lovely, perfect and—above all—private room.

“I need you to fuck me,” Harry breathed hotly in his ear. “I’ve been wanking in the shower, thinking about it for _days_.

Louis grabbed the back of Harry’s head, roughly pulling him into another kiss. Merlin’s pants, Harry needed to shut that wonderfully dirty mouth of his or they’d end up utterly embarrassing themselves and possibly get caught and reprimanded for highly inappropriate behaviour.

“Want to touch you _everywhere_ ,” Harry continued as soon as they broke the kiss again. “Holding back with you’s been awful, I thought I was going mad.”

He pulled Louis to the right and twisted them, leaving them pushed up against yet another bloody wall—honestly, just how many walls could one castle have? They moved together, rubbing against each other desperately, and Louis was feeling decidedly light-headed now, finding it more and more difficult to concentrate on anything except for how bloody marvellous Harry’s body felt against his own.

“Then why did you hold back?” Louis managed, the question morphing into a moan at the end as Harry put his mouth on a particularly nice spot on his neck.

“Was afraid I was leaking magic,” Harry murmured, kissing his way along Louis’s jaw. “You were so fit and I wanted you so much. Needed to make sure I wasn’t making you feel things.”

“I think I’d—” kiss, “—have known if you were—” another kiss, “—putting love spells on me,” Louis got out.

“Consent is _important_ ,” Harry insisted. “I once accidentally made a girl throw her arms around my neck and kiss me in the middle of class. It was _awful._ ”

Louis smiled into the next kiss, twisting them around again and pushing Harry harder against the wall. Harry whined into his mouth, trying to lift himself and wrap his legs around the back of Louis’s thighs. Louis gathered his last shreds of self-control and managed to take a step back.

“Bed,” he said, capturing Harry’s hands when they came up to pull him back in and trapping them effectively above his head. And then promptly let them go again when Harry reacted in a way that made Louis’s promise to himself not to come in his pants very, very hard to keep. “ _Bed,_ Harry. Come on, _please_.”

Harry met his eyes, pupils blown to the point that the irises were almost entirely gone. He took a few shuddering breaths, then pushed himself off the wall with clear difficulty and grasped Louis’s arm, tugging him sideways towards a spiralling staircase.

Louis swallowed hard and picked up the pace, wrapping his arm around Harry’s lower back and urging him to walk faster.

* * *

The next morning, Louis woke up and found himself under observation by a whole family of merpeople, almost leaning out of their portrait to really give him the eye. He immediately recognised Harry’s grandfather among them, who was holding a very sharp-looking trident that Louis hadn’t noticed before.

Louis subconsciously pulled the blankets up to cover himself better. Not that it made a difference since the portrait had been hanging on Harry’s wall for quite a while and most likely hadn’t missed a thing about what had gone on between the two of them last night.

Merlin, Louis really hated portraits sometimes. Not that he’d ever _tell_ a painting that, of course. Fickle, grudge-holding bastards the lot of them; Louis couldn’t believe he still wasn’t able to use the shortcut between the main staircase and the seventh floor back at Hogwarts.

The merpeople in the painting were all giving him looks that clearly said ‘hurt one of ours and we’ll chop you up into little tiny pieces and feed you to our pet fish’. Louis swallowed and gave them a careful nod.

“What are you looking at?”

Louis turned and found himself face to face with Harry, all rumpled and sleep-soft, smiling up at him.

“Oh, nothing. Your relatives being creepy. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like, being a portrait. Just sitting there watching as life goes by for everyone else.”

“I don’t think they’re sentient in that way,” Harry replied. “Besides, they can always leave their frames and go visit each other.”

“Yes, I’d almost forgotten about that,” Louis said, trying to crawl even deeper under the covers. So he could be followed around all day by a group of suspicious merpeople, then. Fun. 

“Come on,” Harry said softly, pulling him closer with a smile. “Let’s not get up quite yet.”

Louis was about to say that he actually really wanted to get up and leave the room and, preferably, find some part of Beauxbatons completely free of paintings, but then Harry’s arm slipped around his waist and, well... staying in bed seemed like a pretty good idea, after all.

* * *

Their Charms lesson that afternoon was a rather lazy affair, with Professor Gauffin allowing them to pick their own subjects of study. Which might have had something to do with the weather, Louis thought, watching the professor surreptitiously leaning back in his chair to catch the sun streaming in through the window. 

“I was wondering if you could show me a bit of that Weather Charming you did in the wood?” Louis asked Harry, who smiled back at him. 

“Sure. We have to be careful indoors, though. Can’t conjure up anything more harsh than a breeze. Here…” Harry stood up, pulling Louis to his feet. “I’ll show you.”

He reached around and took Louis’s wand hand into his own, miming the movement slowly. Louis grinned; this was like every cheesy fantasy he’d ever had at some point or another. 

“Relax, I’ll take it slow,” Harry said with a grin of his own, obviously thinking along the same lines. 

He talked Louis through the theory, and then took a step to the side to let Louis try. 

A small breeze sprang up, tousling Harry’s hair gently. Feeling elated at his success, Louis glanced at the table next to him, where Gloria was Summoning daisies, and directed his breeze first that way, and then back at Harry. 

“Hey!” Gloria said, but her daisies were already spiralling up and away, landing gently in Harry’s hair. Harry laughed. 

“Oh, how bloody adorable,” Gloria said, sourly. “I worked hard on those, you lovesick prat.”

Louis only grinned at her.

* * *

The weekend passed in a happy blur. They visited one of the other Beauxbatons annexes—an observatory high up in the mountains that made for excellent flying by day and clear skies for stargazing by night—and once they came back from that, Harry pulled Louis back to their shared room and spelled the door shut for a full twenty-four hours.

Apparently, the Beauxbatons kitchens delivered. And gave you extra plates of strawberries if you asked them nicely. Louis had to admit that the French school had its moments.

“Does you hair look like that on its own or do have some long-term charm on it?” he asked, running his fingers lazily through Harry’s curls. 

“Do I look charmed to you?” Harry asked, raising his eyebrows. 

Louis leant his head back, considering. “Charming, perhaps,” he said, and Harry grinned at him. 

“So you’d be the charmed one, then.”

“Oh yes. All dithered and dizzy, that’s me.”

Harry rolled up on one elbow, gazing down at him, then smiled. “I think I like you dizzy,” he said, and leant down for a slow kiss. 

Those flights above the mountains the day before, Louis thought a little later, might have taken his breath away for a while—but they really had nothing on kissing Harry.

* * *

“I love Tuesdays,” Harry said two days later, leaning back in his chair after a lunch that had once again been excellent—if rather heavy on the salad. Honestly, was some bangers and mash really too much to ask for? 

“Yes, we’re free after lunch, right?” Louis said. 

“Best day of the week,” Harry said, then got up. “I’m going to see if I can get some macarons in the kitchen. We could spend the afternoon outside.”

“Don’t be long,” Louis told him, and Harry turned and smiled at him before he left. 

Louis turned back to find Niall giving him a disgusted look. 

“OK, you are now officially worse than Dorothea,” he said. “ _Dorothea_ , Tomlinson.”

Louis laughed. “I’m nothing like Dorothea.”

“No, you’re right,” Niall said, mock considering. “Dorothea isn’t writing _I love Harry_ in all her notebooks and planning an autumn wedding.”

Louis raised his eyebrows. “Dorothea’s parents are coming down at the last day of our stay to go over betrothal contracts,” he pointed out. 

“Yeah? And you met Harry’s granddad.”

“During a class.”

“He bowed to you.”

“I bowed to him! He was being polite.”

“OK, sure, whatever,” Niall said, rolling his eyes. “But just so you know, my middle name is James. For baby name ideas.”

Louis tossed his napkin at him, then caught sight of Harry waving at him from the _Grande Salle’s_ entrance. 

“See you later, Niall,” he said quickly and rose from his seat. 

“Say hello to the husband for me.”

“Shut up, Horan.”

* * *

That night, there was a flurry of owls over dinner. With a pang, Louis recognised his family owl, carrying a bundle of letters in his claws. 

Lottie had written a letter, and the twins had collaborated on one, and then there was a letter from his mum. Louis felt heavy, reading it through. She was wonderful, his mum, all enthusiastic about his stay in Beauxbatons and asking him to tell her about everything he’d seen—but underneath it, Louis knew that what she wouldn’t allow herself to write was that she wanted him to come home. And Louis wanted to go home, he did. 

But it wasn’t that simple any longer. 

He looked across the table at Harry, who was laughing at a letter from his sister, and felt his heart sink. 

Having a holiday fling was meant to be temporary—escapist, casual fun. But now the end was in sight, and reality was coming back, at the same time as the idea of a fling had somehow transformed itself into the reality of _Harry_.

Louis realised with a sick feeling that didn’t want to leave. And yet, he’d have to—in just three days, no less.

He folded up his letters carefully and put them in the front pocket on his robes, right next to his heart. Family always came first, Louis reminded himself—as long as he held on to that, everything else would be just fine.

* * *

The next morning, Louis got out of bed before the blasted violins had the chance to get to him and snuck out of his and Harry’s room with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He wandered around aimlessly for a while, until he found himself in one of the corridors leading down to the _Grande Salle_ and figured that he might as well go get some breakfast.

The dining hall was almost empty, with just a few scattered students here and there. Louis spotted Dorothea sitting by herself at one of the tables, surrounded by piles of books and rolls of parchment, and made his way over. 

“Well, someone is studying hard.”

“Morning, Louis,” Dorothea said, without looking up from the scroll she was reading. “I don’t suppose your French has magically improved just by association? No? Too bad, I could have used your assistance going over these documents.”

“What are they about?” Louis asked, sitting down next to her and reaching for a _pain au chocolat_ from a basket on the table.

“Oh, it’s just some legal documents,” Dorothea replied. “Proof of ownership for certain businesses, deeds to land holdings, you know.”

“Reading up on your intended, eh?” Louis said. He had meant it as a joke, but judging from the way Dorothea narrowed her eyes at him, she clearly didn’t take it as such.

“Of course I am,” she replied slowly, as though Louis was a particularly dim child. “I’m preparing to join my family’s considerable assets to those of another family. What did you think I’d do, waltz into it blindly? Oh, please.”

Louis was taken aback. “You’re actually planning to get _married_? Now?”

“No, I’m planning to buy out his share in the family business with my pocket money,” Dorothea said, rolling her eyes. 

“In that case, yes, that is exactly what I’d call waltzing blindly into a life-altering decision,” Louis said, annoyed. 

Dorothea started to make a face, then seemed to change her mind and looked seriously at him instead. “André and I get on well together,” she said. “We share the same values, have a similar background and very compatible goals in life. As life-altering decisions go, a lot of the groundwork is already done.”

“How do you know he’s the one, though?” Louis asked, feeling slightly helpless. “I mean, you’ve only known the bloke a week and a half. Don’t you think you’re rushing into things?”

“Not particularly,” Dorothea replied. “André has been on the shortlist of potential matches for me since I was a child. I simply haven’t had the chance to meet him before now. Trust me, I know what I need to know; the scroll Father sent me after I announced my potential interest in the match was very comprehensive.”

“Right,” Louis said. “Well, I know that your family is about as old, traditional and powerful as it gets, but still. Don’t you want to marry someone that you, you know, love?”

Dorothea burst out laughing.

“Oh, Louis, you’re such a Muggle, sometimes,” she said once she’d managed to pull herself together. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t consider something as fickle and fleeting as romantic love to be particularly good grounds for marriage. It’s certainly practical to have, but it can make a right mess of things as well. I mean, just look at the divorce rate these days! No, I prefer the kind of union my parents have, to be honest, where love has grown over time out of deep respect for one another. A partnership of equals.”

“Well, it sounds like you have it all figured out,” Louis replied, perhaps a bit more testily than intended. Even though he hated to admit it, Dorothea’s words had definitely struck a nerve. “Happy business arrangement.”

“Happy epic lovestory,” Dorothea replied all-too-sweetly. “I do hope it all works out for you. True love is such a rare thing these days. Unless, of course, you read Witch Weekly.”

She drew her wand and Summoned all her books and scrolls into a small, green pouch, got up and turned on her heel, walking away from Louis with her head held high. 

Louis dropped his face in his hands.

* * *

Louis hid in the Beauxbatons aviary for the rest of the morning, writing replies to his family and trying to figure out what to do next. The easiest way would, of course, be to just let things with Harry come to a natural end when their group went back home. Tell him he’d had a lovely time, say goodbye and go home to continue on with his regular life.

It sounded perfectly easy; it didn’t feel like it at all.

“Am I being overly dramatic about this, Oswald?” Louis asked. “Maybe I should just let it go?” His owl made an impatient hooting sound and held out its leg. Sighing, Louis complied, tying his letter to home around it with a green ribbon.

“You’re no help at all, you know,” he told the bird, ruffling the feathers just behind its head. “Right, right, I’m stalling. Go home. Peck the girls from me, yeah?”

The owl flew off, and some part of Louis wished he could just have gone with it and escaped having to make a decision at all. He sighed again and collected his things, checking his watch as he did so.

Right then, time for class.

* * *

Charms that morning was a chore. They were supposed to be working on different herbs, aiding them to grow faster without harming the integrity of the plant, but Louis simply couldn’t get the magic to work. And it didn’t help that every time his little rosemary bush started writhing, he saw the nymphs reaching out for him and felt a phantom sensation of vines curling tightly up his legs. Finally he threw his wand aside and sat, arms crossed, glaring at his pot. His rosemary was still alive, but only just, and there was no sign of even a budding flower. 

Harry glanced at him, then left his own magnificently blooming thyme bush and scooted his chair closer. 

“Rosemary is difficult,” he said, with an apologetic smile. “Do you want a hand?”

Louis shrugged. His plant looked quite beyond help as far as he was concerned. “Sure, whatever.”

Harry gave him a surprised look, but moved a little closer. “Whenever you’re dealing with something growing, wandless magic is often easier,” he said. “Usually, you find the will to grow in the point where a twig splits in two. Focus the magic there, and it should help.”

He reached out a finger and touched a forked branch. Within seconds, purple flowers were opening slowly. 

“Try it,” Harry said, smiling, and reached out with his free hand to take Louis’s. 

Louis felt a tightness build in his chest as Harry took his hand and guided it to another point on the rosemary. He could feel Harry’s magic nudging at his, strong and sure and nothing like the mess Louis was sure his own felt like at the moment. They touched the plant, but nothing happened—well, apart from the rosemary sagging a little deeper into its pot, looking thoroughly dejected. 

“Don’t worry,” Harry said. “You need to really just find that growth. It’s there already in the plant. You just have to help it along a little bit.”

Louis pulled away, crossing his arms. On the table, one of the branches on the plant withered and died.

“I don’t know why you couldn’t just let me do this with my wand,” he said. “Not everything has to be all airy-fairy Dark Magic, connected to the earth and whatnot.”

Harry frowned at him. “And not everything is,” he said. “I’m not a great Dark Magic user myself, but—”

“Oh, but _anyone_ is better than some English Hogwarts plebian?” 

Harry pulled back in turn. “I didn’t say that at all. Where in Merlin’s beard did that come from?”

“Harry, you know wands were invented for a reason, right?” Louis snapped, not able to stop himself. “Circe’s warts, I can’t wait to get back home and away from all this,” he affected a high, nasal tone, “ _just feel the magic_ crap. I don’t know why it has to be this earthy, ooh-look-at-us-and-our-fancy-wandless-magic with you people all the time.”

Harry’s mouth opened in shock. “What do you mean, _you people_?” 

“All this posh Beauxbatons standing on ceremony,” Louis shot back. “With the bowing to doors and the singing magic and the _bloody_ string quartets. And this stupid thing about wands being, like, only good enough for the rustic shits up in the North...”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Harry interrupted. “And I thought that was why you came here—to learn about different ways of doing magic!”

“Actually, I came here to get a holiday,” Louis replied. “A few weeks of sun, fun and maybe a fling with a cute French boy. So, hey, thanks for helping out with that.”

For several seconds after that, they just stared at each other. 

“ _Merde, calmez-vous,_ ” one of the students working close to them said, giving them an annoyed glance. And the reality of what he’d just said crashed down on Louis like a tonne of bricks.

_Oh fuck._

Before he could say anything, Harry stood up, so quickly that he almost turned his chair over. He glared at Louis and opened his mouth, then clenched his jaw shut and walked out of the room without a backwards glance. 

Louis was halfway out of his own chair when he suddenly stopped, hesitating. Every instinct told him to chase after Harry, but, Merlin’s bloody pants, what was he even going to say when he caught up with him? ‘I’m sorry’? Louis mentally slapped himself to save Harry the trouble.

 _Don’t forget,_ a small voice at the back of his head told him, _it would have had to come to an end soon anyway. You’re going home in four days. Perhaps it’s better just to leave it?_

Louis slumped back into his chair and dropped his face into his hands for a minute, biting his bottom lip hard to keep himself from shouting curses in the middle of the class. He sat through the rest of the lesson and tried to ignore the heavy feeling in his stomach, watching his rosemary bush wilt away accusingly.

* * *

Louis was poking dejectedly at his plate of mussels when Niall slid into the seat next to him and proceeded to glare silently. For a minute or two, Louis managed to ignore him, but when Liam and then Zayn sat down in front of him, he finally looked up. 

“What?”

“So, Harry isn’t at lunch,” Niall said. “And Zayn said he loves moofrit.” 

“ _Moules-frites._ ”

“That’s what I said.”

“He looked really upset when I saw him before,” Liam said, doing his sad-eyebrows thing at Louis. “Are the two of you having a fight?”

Zayn cleared his throat. “ _Si vous avez des problèmes sexuels, il y a une potion qui—_ ”

“The sex is fine!” Louis snapped. Niall raised his eyebrows.

“Thought you didn’t speak French?” 

Louis rolled his eyes. “Some words stick out.”

Niall leaned back, crossing his arms and looking at him through narrowed eyes. “So what’s happened with you and Harry? Did you do something stupid?”

“Why are you assuming I did something?” Louis asked, hoping that didn’t come out sounding as guilty as he felt. 

“Because Harry looks like a kicked puppy, and your poker face is kind of shite,” Niall said matter-of-factly. “What did you do?”

Louis shrugged, uncomfortable. 

Niall looked at Liam and Zayn, and then they all looked at Louis. Niall in particular looked absolutely disgusted with him. 

“Well, Harry is miserable, so you’d bloody well better do something about it,” he said. 

“You know, maybe you could get on with your own lives?” Louis suggested. “And keep your nose out of ours?”

“We’re just trying to help,” Liam said. 

“ _Vous êtes bien ensemble, même si tu fais le con en ce moment,_ ” Zayn said.

“What he said,” Niall added. 

“ _Je l’ai jamais vu aussi heureux qu’avec toi._ ”

“That, too.”

Liam leaned forward. “Are you bothered about going home?” he asked quietly. “Because I get that. I really do. But it’s really stupid to go and fuck up everything _now_ , only because _then_ might be a problem.”

“Also, mate,” Niall added, “pissing off a mermaid? Not your brightest move.”

“Not helpful, Niall,” Liam said.

“I’m just saying—at least when he washes up on the shore somewhere, we’ll know what happened.”

Louis looked from one of them to the other, then stood up. He needed to get out of there. The sick feeling that had been building inside him all day became almost overwhelming, now with plenty of extra guilt added to the mix.

_He looked really upset… stupid to go fucking up everything now… Harry is miserable._

Louis swallowed hard. Oh, fuck, they were right. He’d really gone and bollocksed it all up.

And he’d managed to hurt Harry.

Louis turned and ran from the room.

* * *

He found Harry in their room, sitting in the window sill and looking down on the grounds below, his shoulders hunched and tense. 

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, closing the door behind himself and leaning back against it heavily. “I was an utter arse.”

Harry made a small huffing sound and kept looking pointedly out the window.

“I really shouldn’t have said what I said,” Louis tried again. “I was a right git.”

Harry kept looking out the window for a long time. When he finally spoke, it was barely louder than a whisper.

“I just don’t get it,” he said. “I thought everything was fine. And then you just—forget it.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis repeated helplessly. “I don’t know what I was doing.”

“I knew something was wrong when I woke up this morning and you weren’t there,” Harry said. “I told myself I was being silly, but I wasn’t, was I? You never get out of bed early if you can help it. And I’ve thought and thought about it, and the only thing I can pinpoint is that you got weird last night after the post came.” He turned his head, meeting Louis’s eyes. “So, is that it? Is there someone at home waiting for you that you’d conveniently put out of your mind for a little summer adventure? Was I just fooling myself, thinking we actually had something more?”

Louis shook his head. “You’re not fooling yourself,” he said. “That’s what makes this difficult.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “So you’re just generally an arse, then.”

Louis winced. But yeah, maybe he deserved that one. 

“There’s no one else at home,” he said. “I mean, there is, and that’s why I got my knickers in such a proper twist, but it’s not what you think. I’m not seeing anyone else.”

“Then what?” Harry asked, turning around completely and leaning back against the window. “What is the big problem?”

“It’s home,” Louis said, and saying it out loud was like acknowledging the load he’d been carrying the past couple of years. It made his throat hurt, but he barrelled on regardless. “Home is—complicated.”

He pushed himself away from the door and sat down on his bed, half turned away from Harry. Maybe, if he didn’t have to look at Harry, this would be easier to say. 

“My parents got divorced two years ago,” he said. “My dad’s family’s the kind that sets tradition and appearances above everything else. It was a big scandal when dad married mum, apparently. She was dirt poor, you see—no family to speak of—and there was some lovely Pureblood girl that dad had dated in school that the whole family was in love with. They came around a little bit, after me and my sisters were born, but they never warmed to mum, and so when she and dad split, they were utterly gleeful about it. Offered her a big pile of gold if she’d leave us kids with them and quietly fade out of the picture. Mum told them where to shove it. Safe to say, things got pretty ugly after that.”

Behind him, Harry gasped. “That’s _awful_ ,” he said. “So the letters you got—”

“From my mum and sisters,” Louis confirmed. “They all try to sound as though things are great, but they need me home. My oldest sister just finished her first year at Hogwarts and the rest are still little. I’m the only one who can really help out.”

He drew a deep breath. “My life is there. It has to be. But I just—I don’t want to end this.”

Harry didn’t say anything, and Louis didn’t want to turn around. Harry sat down beside him, leaning their shoulders together. “Then, do we have to?”

Louis laughed shortly. “I live in _England_. We can’t exactly visit each other on weekends.”

“I’m fine with Owling if you are,” Harry said. “I’m fine with—with whatever.”

“Well I’m not,” Louis said hotly. “I bloody well want a lot more than just ‘whatever’, but I guess that’s just me.”

“I didn’t say that,” Harry protested.

“Then what _do_ you want?” Louis said, crossing his arms over his chest and curling in on himself. “I’m sure there’s a lot of people here who would be thrilled to keep you company.”

Harry flinched at that, and when he looked back at Louis, he looked angry. “I don’t care about anyone else,” he said tightly. “I took you to to my home, Louis—the one I don’t tell people about because I never know how they will react—didn’t that give you a clue?”

“About what exactly?”

“That I think I’m in love with you,” Harry said quietly.

Louis stopped short. “What?”

Harry narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m not going to say it again. Not if you’re being an arse about it.”

Louis stared back at him. Something squirmed in his stomach; something like happiness or hope. 

“I—I’m the same,” he managed at last. “And I don’t want to leave you, Harry. I really don’t. But I have to.”

Harry smiled, for the first time. “I could follow you, you know,” he said. “I mean, I’m coming to England for Christmas anyway.”

“I can’t come here, though,” Louis insisted, because he was obviously a masochist. “I can’t afford to travel to France. I’ll be getting a job when I finish school, but that’ll be home in England. My family needs me back home; I can’t move here. And you have one more year of school left after that, and then you’ll go on your travels, and you don’t know that you’ll want to come live in England even after that, and—”

Harry put a hand softly and carefully on his, barely touching. “Maybe we don’t have to figure everything out all at once,” he said. “Maybe for now we could just agree that we want to. I mean, it’s like they say, isn’t it—all good things come to those who wait.”

Louis felt that little ray of hope building. Maybe it was possible. After all, there was still Owl Post. 

And Christmas holidays. 

He took Harry’s hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “Are you sure? Long distance is a bitch. We’ll probably go mad before start of term.”

“What part of _in love with you_ did you not get?” Harry asked, leaning his forehead against Louis’s. “I’ll have you know I can be _very_ patient with the right kind of motivation.” He reached down and deftly pinched one of Louis’s nipples, laughing when Louis yelped in surprise. “Anyway, you’re only on the other side of the Channel. Don’t be so bloody dramatic.”

Louis grinned and opened his mouth to retort. Harry got there first, however, stopping him with a deep kiss and effectively ending the conversation.

* * *

The Beauxbatons entrance hall was a mess. Luggage and people were everywhere, and the statue standing next to the doors to the Grande Salle had put its fingers into its ears with a put-upon expression. 

The Patils and their respective roommates were one large, tangled huddle of hugs. Dorothea, on the other hand, looked quite calm about leaving her beau—Louis guessed signed betrothal contracts would do that to you. Then there was Ainsley, who was stalking towards the rest of them with a sour expression and vividly blue hair, her roommate Nadine trailing smugly behind. 

“Thought you liked a good prank?” Louis asked her as she walked past him. 

“I _like_ having the last word,” she muttered back. Nadine raised an infuriating eyebrow and smiled. 

Liam and Zayn were standing off in one corner, their heads bent close together, their hands almost, but not quite, touching. Louis smiled. They really thought they were so bloody subtle.

“So,” Harry said beside him. “This is it, then.”

“Guess so,” Louis said, turning towards him. “Not for long though. I’m sending you an owl as soon as I get home. In fact, I might nick one here and see what happens if you send it off while on a Portkey.”

“Better not,” Harry replied. “Poor bird could end up anywhere, and then where would I be? Letterless and lonely, thinking you’d forgotten about me.” Harry’s voice was light, but Louis still felt a small pang at the words.

“As soon as I get home,” he promised. “Don’t go turning yourself into a tree while I’m gone, all right? It’d make taking the train from London up to Hogwarts such a bother.”

Harry smiled. “I promise,” he said, then threw himself around Louis’s neck and held on tight enough that it was almost painful. Louis hugged him back just as fiercely. Agrippa’s pants, why did Christmas have to be so bloody far away?

They didn’t part until Professor Longbottom—there with Professor Sinistra to escort their group back—tapped Louis on the shoulder and told him quietly that it was time to say goodbye.

“Bye, Louis,” Harry said. “Talk to you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louis confirmed. “Bye, Harry.”

Professor Longbottom, who had kept a respectful distance while they said their goodbyes, came up to him and led him out of the room, down the same corridor they had first arrived in.

“Portkey activates in ten seconds,” he said, once the whole group had gathered. “On my count, please.”

Louis closed his eyes and held out his hand.

***

When the spinning stopped, he was standing once more in the Ministry of Magic. There were people hurrying past for their own Portkeys, and all around them was the sound of English and the smell of take-away cups of tea. 

Louis took a deep breath. So. Back to the real world, then. He’d Floo to Diagon Alley in the morning, check in with the shops there to see if anyone needed extra staff during the summer, maybe take a trip to Hogsmeade as well, just to double his chances.

But first, he was going to go back home. See his family. And, well, there was a certain letter that he needed to write.

He said goodbye to the rest of the group, promising Niall and Liam to meet up to watch the preliminaries to next year’s Quidditch World Cup at some point during the rest of their holidays, and then walked to the Leaky Cauldron, nodding at the barman before taking a pinch of Floo powder from a bowl by the main fireplace.

“ _The Donny Hearth,_ ” he said, watching the flames turn emerald. He couldn’t wait to see his sisters and tell them all about the mermaids, nymphs and everything else he’d seen. He also couldn’t wait for Christmas. Just the thought of seeing Harry again was making him go a little weak in the knees.

He stepped into the fire and let the Floo carry him off.

_All good things come to those who wait._


	5. Epilogue

Louis checked his watch. Beside him, Niall groaned in frustration. 

“You seriously could not check that watch any more often,” he said, making an exasperated gesture. “They are on their way. They won’t come any faster if you strain yourself checking the time. Harry won’t thank you for it, either.”

Louis glared at him. Niall grinned. 

“Look at Liam,” he continued. “He isn’t fretting like an idiot.”

Louis looked at Liam’s stony face. “I’m pretty sure that’s because he’s petrified with nerves.”

Without otherwise moving or changing his expression at all, Liam reached out a hand and cuffed him over the head. 

“I don’t know why I decided to become friends with you two,” Niall said, rolling his eyes. 

“Go and wait in the Three Broomsticks if you’re so fed up with us, then,” Louis said, poking him in the side. 

“And miss the grand reunion? Then who’s going to be here to hand you hankies, Tomlinson?”

“Merlin, make him _shut up_ ,” Liam said, but he was grinning now. 

Louis was still fabricating a response when the heard the train whistle. His head jerked around, and his heart started beating hard enough to match the exaggerated _thump-thump_ Niall was miming with a fist against his own chest.

They’d have two whole weeks of Christmas holidays together. And that might not sound like much, but after half a year of Owl Post, it felt like a lifetime. 

And, anyway, two weeks had been more than enough for everything that mattered last time. 

The train puffed slowly into Hogsmeade Station and ground to a halt, exhaling steam in a long, loud wheeze. And then the doors opened, and Harry stepped off the train. 

Louis couldn’t breathe. 

He was vaguely aware of Liam moving forwards beside him, and Niall was saying something about being glad he brought extra hankies, but he could only focus on Harry. And then Harry was there, wrapped around him, and Louis had promised himself he wouldn’t cry, but no one would notice if he just pressed his face into Harry’s hair for a little while, right? 

“I am so glad to see you,” Harry whispered into his ear, and Louis could only nod silently. 

“OK, so now I’m checking my watch,” he heard Niall say at last, and he stepped back, laughing—but kept hold of Harry’s hands. 

“Finally, I get to have you all to myself,” he said, looking into Harry’s smiling face, and Harry laughed. 

“Not all to yourself,” Niall broke in. “You’re not allowed to disappear and leave me with these two.” He pointed a thumb at Liam and Zayn, who rolled his eyes, but fondly.

“ _Peut-être on pourrait trouver un copain pour lui aussi?_ ” he said. “ _Ou une copine? C’est quoi, sa préference?_ ” 

“Is he saying something about me?” Niall asked suspiciously. 

Harry just shook his head, laughing again. “It’s good to see all of you,” he said. 

“Yeah, well, you and Zayn both owe me drinks for making me put up with these two,” Niall told Harry. “Let’s rectify that immediately. Three Broomsticks is this way.”

“After you,” Harry said, wrapping his arm around Louis’s waist. Niall laughed and put his own arm around Louis’s shoulders, effectively pinning him between them.

“Hey now,” Louis tried to protest. “I feel manhandled and unfairly appropriated. Horan, let me go.”

“Sharing is caring,” Niall replied happily. “Right, Harry?”

“It’s true, Lou,” Harry said. “Charity starts at home.”

“Oh well, if you put it _that_ way,” Louis said sarcastically. Harry laughed and leaned in to kiss him.

Louis kissed him back, smirking on the inside at the retching sounds Niall was making as he made a show of trying to pull the two of them apart, then quickly gave up and walked over to Zayn and Liam, talking very loudly about how very abused and neglected he felt.

Louis smiled and pulled Harry closer. It was going to be a very good Christmas indeed.

THE END


End file.
